


The Island

by daleyka



Series: The Island Alternative Timelines [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A comment described this as 'Space Hamlet' and yeah, Alternate Timelines, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Solo Suffering Copiously, But not graphic/erotic, Canon compliant-ish, Canonical Character Death, Changing the past, Character Study, Complete, Drama full stop, F/M, Implied Depression/PTSD, Kylo Ren Redemption, Multiple Selves, Other, Plotty, Psychological Drama, Redeemed Ben Solo, Skywalker Family Drama, Snark, Survivor Guilt, Swearing, Timey-Wimey, some fucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-02-24 23:20:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 104,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22006087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daleyka/pseuds/daleyka
Summary: Now I've finished it, I'd summarise this story as 'Ben Solo has to suffer a lot because the end of Rise of Skywalker was disappointing and I don't think you could in any way consider that actual redemption'.The premise is that in order to get the Force back he has to travel to various times in his past and try to stop things going the way they went. This involves a lot of family reunions and a fair bit of Rey. And he does suffer. Quite a lot. Towards ultimate happiness, but it takes 100k words to get there.This fic has made multiple people cry, for which I'm sorry, but well. Redemption's tough, kids.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: The Island Alternative Timelines [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639570
Comments: 142
Kudos: 238





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Update 10.05 (post completion):
> 
> This was written without a beta and as a WIP, meaning that as I wrote and posted, things changed a bit in terms of where the story went. The original plan was actually very different! I'm now editing, pulling this work together, softening a few of the rough edges and tying things together a bit where needed. This might mean that you notice small alterations popping up here and there. If you notice a particularly glaring or frustrating error, please feel free to let me know. I'd be grateful. Otherwise, just read and enjoy the fic! x

He wakes up, dry –mouthed and body aching, to the taste of salt on the air, and the sound of a nearby ocean, the water crashing against the rocks and stones below. There is a bird; he can hear the sound of a trilling, tuneless song in the distance. It is cold.

Where is he?

His eyes cautiously open. Strange, he thinks, that he can see. There are dark, rolling clouds above, obscuring the sun whose light is distant. There must be a rainstorm coming. He sees the tops of trees, their branches furled out wide and strong.

Why do his eyes work?

He was dead, wasn’t he? He had felt himself die. There had been the sensation of his passing into the Force, becoming one with it, and thus leaving one reality for another.

The Jedi had a name for it, which translated to Rearrangement of Being. A euphemism if ever there was one, because it hadn’t felt like rearrangement to him. Disappearance into nothing; becoming one with everything. They were in essence the same thing to Jedi. To him, it was more like disappearance than oneness. Dissolution.

Piece by piece, he had been unfurled into a non-being with everything. That was death.

He feels confused. Why is he here? 

_Rey_.

He reaches out to her. He’d saved her, hadn’t he? The first entirely good thing he’d ever done with his otherwise stupid and misguided life.

That was what he’d been supposed to do. For so long, he’d believed that his destiny was to defeat some great evil or some great good. He was Chosen as the hero of the piece, the unquestioned lead in the performance of his life. In the end, his purpose had only been to save her. She was the one who was chosen. There is something amusing about it, really. The thought makes him smile.

He had undone the cycle that killed his grandfather. She had _lived_.

 _Rey_ , he thinks again, still trying to find her.

There’s nothing, no answer comes. There’s only the noise of the ocean and the wind, rushing through the trees. If he is alive, is she dead? The thought gives him pause. Balance in the Force. One lives; one dies. Is that right? But it can’t be. He’d made the trade in good faith, and things like that never -

He tries to sit up, and finds that he can move well enough. His body aches but it operates much as it would if he were alive, which he supposes that he must actually be. He reaches out with the Force, trying to locate himself, to understand where and _what_ he is.

There’s nothing. No Force.

He shakes his head, frustrated. Tries again, reaching out his hand, instinctive, to pull something towards him.

Nothing answers. He can’t _feel_ any response.

He stands up, willing himself not to panic. Nothing, nothing, nothing. He stretches, and his body is definitely his. His arm reaches out. He’s still clothed in the same black outfit he was wearing when he died. There’s dust on it, and it’s the dust of Exegol. 

Is this being dead then? Maybe this is the afterlife? He doesn’t feel very dead. He feels …

He searches for what he feels.

 _Hungry_ , mostly. And extremely tired and somewhat afraid. And thus he also feels extremely not like Kylo Ren, who seldom felt hungry or tired, if he felt anything at all, and who never felt afraid, not so as he'd tell you anyway.

He is fucking well not Kylo Ren. He can say that for sure. His thoughts harden around that single point of being. He is _not_ Kylo Ren.

The thought gives him strength. It helps him to move further, to look around him.

Although he can’t feel the Force as such, he can still feel what he knows is Light, surrounding him, within in, gathering in him. He used to feel it all the time. He examines it, probing it like a loose tooth, investigating the pain, the edges of it, its sharpness.

It’s a compulsion towards help rather than hurt. He wants things to get better, rather than worse, and not only for _him_ but for other people too. He feels the connection he has to Rey, even if he can’t find her. The thought of her – assuming she is alive – makes him happy.

Happy.

Odd, he thinks. He doesn’t remember having been happy very often. Kylo Ren was never happy. How is it that he can still identify it?

He walks, taking in the view of the remote, wild place he finds himself in. It is a jagged, rocky island. Below him, the ocean is violent. There are no ships that he can see, neither on the water nor parked nor floating mid-air. No landing bay. In general there are no signs of sentient life. No satellites or machinery. The grass is mossy and stubbly underfoot. Seabirds caw and cry as they swoop.

He thinks he knows where he is now. This is Luke’s island, surely? Ahch-To, the sacred place of the Jedi. A sanctum.

_Them. Jedi._

He doesn’t think he’s a Sith. The idea seems diseased and repellent to him now. Of course he isn’t a Sith. He knew the second he caught the white lightsaber. The way it felt in his hands was like coming home. The access to the Force through it, the sheer joy and power, the _rightness_ of it. He knew then that the thing he’d been searching for had been the thing he always could have had: being with her, in Light, together.

He’s been really stupid, he thinks. Kriff to fuck but he has been the most stupid person in the galaxy. _Of course_ he’s not a Sith.

The only problem is that he appears, currently speaking, to be a dead non-Sith with neither lightsaber nor access to the Force, and he’s on lonely island where it is, he realises, just starting to pour down with rain.

+

Eventually he finds the settlement, if you could call it that. Houses built from rock, crude structures. He can’t sense it with the Force, but he knows that if he could, he’d feel Luke everywhere here. This was the place he ran to, to hide himself away. He is sure of that.

It’s a pretty awful place. Ben knew that Luke’d gone off into the wilderness to atone, but he’d assumed that the wilderness might at least have had a couple of other people around on occasion. He must have lived here alone for _years_. This craggy, miserable no-place, a useless hunk of sacred rock. The thought is depressing.

He moves inside one of the houses to get out of the rain, wiping off his face, trying to shield his eyes against the deluge. It isn’t even locked. The door just pushes open at his touch, creaking slightly. Inside is a bed and some piled-up firewood to start a blaze in the hearth, but not a great deal else. The rain lashes down and he shuts the door hard against it. There’s no way he wants to go outside again. He is soaked to the skin and he’s dog-tired. It would be madness to leave now.

His body still aches, which isn’t surprising. He’d climbed so far to get to her. So far and so fast. Palapatine had been too strong. It had taken him so much strength to survive, to push himself against the side of the abyss, to hold onto each new piece of rock he found. Clinging, fingertip by fingertip, to some hope of this being the moment in which, finally, he could do the right thing, he’d made it.

He’d talked to his uncle, in his head, as he climbed. He wasn’t sure that Luke had heard it, but he’d hoped that he had. _Let me get up to her_ , he’d said. _Even if you hate me, just let me get to her. I’m sorry. Help me. Be with me._

Maybe Luke had heard him or maybe just the mere act of talking to him had given Ben the strength to keep going, he has no idea about that. It had been so long since he talked to him.

He talks to him now too, just in his head. Without the Force it’s fairly obvious that Luke is going to be able to hear him, but that doesn’t matter. That isn’t the point.

 _I’m pretty confused_ , he tells him, speaking frankly. _What am I doing here, Luke? Are you here?_

Numbly, he kneels by the hearth. There’s kindling and flint, so he makes a fire. He knows how. They used to have to do this sort of thing all the time at the Temple, which was similarly bleak in its location. Jedi and abandoned and gloomy wildernesses seem to be a popular pairing. Of course, then he had the Force, and the point was that you could activate a fire with your mind. A lot of the students couldn’t do it, although he always could. He’d watched them struggling. He remembers how they did it.

In a way it’s a restful activity. Spark to kindle, spark, fail, spark to kindle again, waiting for the light to catch. He gets it after a few tries.

There are so many people to miss. He’s barely been Ben Solo for a day, all of which he’s spent running and fighting. For the first time, he is alone. There is no enemy to fight. There is no deadline. There’s just him.

As he stares into the fire, the grief keeps hitting him in waves. His mother, his father, his uncle and all four grandparents. He doesn’t have any family left, unless you count his mother’s extended Alderaani connections, which he isn’t entirely sure he does given that he’s never really met them and they’re not blood anyway.

What the fuck has he done?

His thoughts run dark. Maybe he is dead after all. Perhaps hell is simply this: an eternity on this island, kindling fires with his bare hands. Starving. Missing people. He deserves all of this and more.

The fire is burning with increasing confidence now and its warming effect is soporific. He is desperate to sleep, but he has to get to Rey, somehow. He just has to _see_ her. He wants so desperately. Everything in him wants to be with her.

He tries to use the Force again, already knowing it won’t work. There’s not even a flicker. He has to rest. Maybe it’s somehow connected to exhaustion, although he’s never experienced that before and even as he explores that idea, he knows it isn't true. The Force doesn’t work that way.

The advantages of sleep seem overwhelming now. His body scarcely resisting, he lies down and, for the first time in many long years, Ben Solo sleeps and dreams.

In his dreams, he’s using the Force like he always could. He plays with it, enjoying the power of it, delighting in its possibilities. Everything is light. She is there, and she smiles and smiles.

+

‘Ben?’ someone’s saying in his dream, a vague, shadowy voice that sounds almost sardonic. ‘Ben, wake up.’

He stirs, drowsy and his mind thick with sleep. Where is he, again?

‘You’ve been asleep for fifteen hours,’ the voice says. ‘I know that being a Sith for all those years must have been tiring, but come on. Wake up.’

He opens his eyes to find Luke, or what was once Luke, staring down at him.

‘Hi,’ Luke says. He has an expression on his face that Ben hasn’t seen in a very long time, one that he can scarcely recognise. He blinks, unsure if he is still dreaming.

‘You’re dead.’

Luke’s form quirks its lip in evident amusement at this. ‘Am I? Nothing really dies, Ben. Not for us.’

‘ _Us_.’ He sits up. ‘Is there an us?’

‘ _Jedi_ ,’ Luke says, as if this were an idiotic comment. ‘ _Family_. Skywalkers. Ringing any bells?’

He shakes his head, confused.

‘I can’t use the Force. And I’m not – a Jedi. Not anymore.’

Luke’s face expresses polite doubt of this fact.

‘Ben,’ he says, prickly but with an edge of kindness. ‘Don’t you think you kind of are?’

He stands up from the bed, slightly woozy. He’s really been asleep for a long time, and he’s desperately hungry. The fire’s long since burned out and it’s cold.

‘I died, Luke,’ he says. His voice sounds dry and parched, and he becomes aware of his thirst. ‘I chose to die. I was ready. I don’t understand what this is.’

‘ _Rearrangement of Being_ ,’ Luke says. ‘In your case, the rearrangement from asshole to non-asshole. Which was a great choice, by the way.’

‘That’s –‘ Ben rubs his eyes. ‘Sorry, but I really need to eat. This is your island, right? Is there food here?’

Luke gestures outside. ‘Follow me. I’ll give you the tour.’

They walk quietly through the ruins. Ben’s head is aching, and he really doesn’t feel in the best condition of his life. It is much worse than anything felt as Kylo Ren. 

There’s fresh water though, and Luke directs him to a storeroom that has some sort of bread in it, which doesn’t look fresh but also isn’t rotten. He eats it like he’s not eaten in years. It tastes of nothing good, but it’s heaven just the same to be able to eat even this. 

They sit together in the centre of the room, around what might be construed as a table, if it weren’t just a lump of old rocks and wood. His uncle’s ghostly, translucent form burns steady, a lightness surrounding him.

‘Caretakers are around somewhere then,’ Luke says. ‘A lot left when I did, but there are still a few.’

‘Caretakers?’

‘Guardians of this place.’

‘Ahch-To.’

‘Right,’ Luke says. ‘Somewhere you should have been before. Under the right circumstances.’

Ben takes a long drink of water, preparing.

‘You want to talk about Kylo Ren,’ he says.

Luke’s face flickers. Displeasure, discomfort. ‘I really don’t.’

‘He’s dead,’ Ben observes. ‘Rey killed him with his own lightsaber.’

‘Well. It’s not quite as clear cut as that, is it?’ Luke says. ‘I mean, everything he did, you did. Everything he was, you are.’ Seeing his nephew’s expression, his own face changes to something softer. ‘I don’t mean that’s all you are. I know who _you_ are, Ben. I was with you, and with Rey.’

‘With Palpatine.’ Ben feels a shudder of unease. How close _he_ was to being that monstrous, unspeakable thing. ‘Uncle, I – ’

Luke’s expression crumbles. The sardonic, distant face that Ben knows so well vanishes, replaced by something sadder and older. Luke looks so old that it is almost painful.

‘I never thought I’d hear you call me uncle again,’ he says. His voice almost cracks, but then seems to regain himself. ‘I lost hope that you were alive. I shouldn’t have done. Rey never did.’

‘I have to find her,’ Ben says.

‘Yeah.’ Luke sighs. ‘Of course you do. But to do that, you need the Force. And to have that again, there are things you need to do. Ben, you sacrificed yourself for her. You gave her your life. If a Jedi does that for another, it sets a chain of events in motion. Didn’t you know that?’

‘But the balance in the Force,’ Ben says. ‘How can we both exist now?’

Luke looks at him. His expression conveys compassion, which is the last thing Ben deserves.

‘You’re not going to like any of this, kid,’ he says. ‘Not one bit.’

+

‘There was discussion among us,’ Luke says. ‘And it was agreed that you have to earn it, Ben. You don’t just get to save the girl and live your happily-ever-after.’

‘I didn’t expect to,’ he says. He’d expected to die, after all. There was no question of rebirth.

‘No,’ Luke agrees. ‘But we didn’t expect you’d go full-on self-sacrifice either. It presented a problem for the Jedi. The rules are clear.’

‘What rules?’

‘ _Akratha_ ,’ Luke says, and it’s a word Ben’s never heard. ‘It is only though the loss of self for another that true self can be regained.’

‘I don’t know that one.’

‘You left before I could teach it to you,’ Luke says, and his tone has an edge to it. ‘I thought I’d leave the mysteries of life, love and death until you were a little bit older.’

This is fairly typical, Ben thinks, having a sudden, jarring memory of exactly how his life with Luke had been. Secrets and lies of omission all the way. No, no, your grandfather was just a Jedi who died tragically. Your grandmother was a senator, and everything’s fine here. When he’d left he’d been 23. Was that not old enough?

It seems that even when you’ve moved into being at One with the Light, you’re still able to feel pissed off.

‘Anyway,’ Luke says, like he knows this is what Ben is thinking, ‘we agreed you have to go through the _áethlos.’_

Ben knows the word, of that he is sure. It means ‘struggle’.

‘What do I have to do?’

‘To overcome,’ Luke says. ‘I’m sorry, Ben. But after everything you did, that Kylo Ren did, this is how it has to be. You have to atone.’

‘Without the Force,’ he says, his heart sinking. Luke just nods.

‘And without a saber.’

Luke nods again. ‘Just you.’

‘And if I succeed?’

Luke smiles, just lightly. ‘Then you’ll be the person you were meant to be.’

‘And if I fail?’

‘Then you fail.’

Ben doesn’t ask if he has a choice. He already knows that he doesn’t, and he already knows that he’ll do whatever, anything, to get to Rey and to the Force. He stands up.

‘Show me how,’ he says.

+

Luke takes him down, deep down, into the base of the island. They climb over rocks, down, down into a chasm below. There’s some vague unease in him that he can’t place. Something grim and unpleasant that makes him feel tense and unhappy.

‘What is that?’ he asks his uncle. ‘There’s something here.’

Luke nods. ‘Darkness,’ he says.

‘I can feel something,’ Ben says, ‘but I don’t know what it is.’

‘That’s how people feel it,’ Luke says. ‘I mean, people without the Force. That’s how they sense evil.’

Ben feels the sensation, examines it. It is a wariness, he thinks. Nothing strong, not a palpable _knowledge_ of evil, but a sense nevertheless of an un-right thing in the world, like hairs prickling on the nape of his neck. He shudders.

‘Not nice, is it?’ Luke says. ‘If you sense that, imagine how I feel.’

‘Like vomiting, probably,’ Ben replies, because that’s how he used to feel, back when he looked at Sith things, back before he basically _was_ a Sith.

‘Worse,’ Luke says, but he doesn’t elaborate. 

They climb further down, until they are facing a small entrance into what must be a cave beyond, somewhere dark and damp. It is an unwelcoming, forbidding place. Still, as Kylo Ren, he’d seen a thousand worse things than this.

‘This is where I’m out,’ Luke says. ‘It’s just you in there.’ 

He turns to Ben, face full of softness. Reaches out a hand to touch him, just as his father had done, gently touching his face.

‘I love you,’ Luke says. ‘I always loved you. From the moment you were born, I loved you, Ben. You should know that.’

He doesn’t know what to say. There’s too much between them now, too many awful things, too many memories of which he is ashamed.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ Luke says. ‘Your father lived without the Force and he was never afraid.’

‘I – ‘

‘It’s not all that you are,’ Luke continues. ‘It never was.’

Ben feels very much like it _is_ all he ever was. He hates being without the Force. It’s like being suddenly blind. Nothing is the same, everything dulled, rendered less, without colour and light. He can’t _feel_ anything like this, and he can’t do anything either. He is amputated.

‘Don’t think that,’ Luke says. His voice is urgent. ‘Think about the things you can do. Forget those that you can’t. Just try to do the right things. You know what they are, even without the Force.’

He nods, although he doesn’t believe it. He feels bleak. He’s seen what people without the Force can do, and that’s usually to die quickly and horribly because someone – him, for example – chokes the air out of their lungs or smashes them across the air to a violent death as they land, their bones cracking apart. 

Still.

‘I’ll try,’ he says, because he will.

His uncle smiles at him, all benevolence and care. It is the strangest thing in the world.

You look like yourself again,’ Luke says. ‘Not like that asshole. Nothing about you looks the same.’

Ben tries, and manages, to smile back at him.

‘Still in black, though,’ he says, gesturing to his outfit.

Luke grins.

‘Kylo Ren always was a miserable fucker,’ he says, with which Ben finds it hard to disagree.

‘Good luck in there,’ Luke adds. ‘May the Force be with you.’

‘Or not,’ Ben observes.

Luke’s smile doesn’t fade. ‘You still know how it works, kid. You still know it’s out there.'

He moves towards the entrance of the cave. He feels tired, alone, and fairly certain he’s going to die, but it seems… fitting, perhaps. He already died. Whatever’s waiting in there for him, it’s not something he hasn’t already faced, in the end, because the last thing anyone can face, the biggest fear of them all, is only death.

He’s going to try to fight.

He’s going to try to win as well.

‘Goodbye, Uncle,’ he says, turning his head back towards Luke, who gives him a sort of nod, and then, he steps forward and into the cave.


	2. Chapter 2

As he crouches though the cave’s low tunnel, the ceiling dank with moss and dripping water, in the distance there is the noise of clinking glass and a hum of conversation, light and airy. The sound of someone’s trilling social laughter. A man's voice, sonorous. A high-pitched giggle at whatever he has said. Extraordinary as it seems, he thinks it might be a _party_ that he can hear.

It sounds like…

God, what is that? It sounds like nothing he’s heard in years. The closer he gets, the more sure he is that it’s some kind of social event, nothing like a military gathering but something from his mother’s world, that odd, half-remembered place of politics and allegiances, socialising and networks. As he strains to understand what he is hearing, he makes out a distant conversation from within the din. 

_Oh yes_ , someone, a man is saying. _Of course, if you consider Karabas as the likely replacement, I'd say he'd certainly rescind Article 89._

Fuck, Ben thinks. That is certainly a political party.

 _I can hardly agree_ , someone else says, her voice as light as falling snow. _Karabas’s hands are so awfully tied, you know. He should never have got into bed with Haran._

 _Literally, of course_ , the man says, to the sound of general laughter.

Ben doesn't understand this. He's never heard of anyone called Karabas or Haran, nor of any Article 89. Whoever they are, they're nothing to do with the First Order. As he takes a step closer, the sounds of the party are very loud and near now. There's music in the background - a stringed instrument, or a series of them. He sees that there is a light, flickering up ahead, curving around what must be an entrance to the place he can hear.

Does he really want to go in? He doesn’t see, immediately, the connection between what sounds like a standard sort of political event and his reconnecting with the Force and Rey, but there’s no way back. And how bad can it be, anyway? It's a party.

The door, if you could call it that, beckons. All he has to do is walk through it. 

_Be with me_ , he thinks, to Luke or to anyone else out there might have some benevolent feeling towards him, assuming that he’s not _actually_ cut off from the Force, just temporarily anesthetised. There is a flash of light, and he feels a strange, heavy sensation, as if someone is bearing down on him with a great weight, and then – all at once -the room comes sharply into view.

Around him, people give him cursory glances, perhaps of surprise at his black outfit, which he has to concede, isn’t really in keeping with the rest of the place, but as he stands there quietly, not looking back, they gradually turn their attention away and back to their conversations. They're dressed prettily, for the most. Decorative women and men in suits. Their lives look like they must be ones of ease, although Ben has enough experience with the world to know that outside appearances speak for very little in that way. 

As he looks around, he has the strange sensation that he's seen this room before. He has an odd memory of having seen the same fireplace, which is vast and imposing, but in his mind it was even taller than it is now. The wooden floor, polished to perfection. The high windows set in black frames, with those long, trailing green curtains. As he looks around, he feels more and more certain that this is somewhere he knows, or knew.

Is this his memory? Jedi can construct realities out of memories; that much he knows. The past and present can be blurred if you can control someone's mind. But surely it's too perfect for that? The realisation of the scene is beyond what he could have remembered, even buried in the depths of his subconscious. Every face? Every movement of every person? The precise way that that waitress is about to overbalance, until - with a little gasp - she regains herself, teetering on shoes that are too high. He hasn't seen any of this before. 

There is that faint music again: an orchestral piece. Laughter. The smell of food, something sweetly spiced, and he thinks he remembers that too, from some long-ago place in his life, but he can't say where.

‘Good evening,’ someone says, and he turns to find a man standing with a tray of drinks. ‘Can I offer you a sample of our champagne? The very finest in the galaxy.’

‘Oh,’ Ben says, looking at it. It fizzes vaguely. ‘I don’t –‘

He doesn’t drink, as a rule. He doesn’t go to parties. He moved to a temple in the middle of nowhere when he was eleven years old, and then to Snoke when he was twenty-three, where he lived the rest of his days, if you could call that living. He's attended events within the First Order, but those were ceremonial things. His role was to stand there in a mask and look angry, or convey a general sense of malevolence. There were birthday parties and things at the temple, or occasionally on Coruscant when he'd go home to visit - but -

‘You should,’ another man says lightly, approaching them. ‘It cost about ten times your weekly salary. Shame not to, really. I will, you know.’

He, the man, takes a glass of the champagne, and gulps a good third of it down in one go, smacking his lips with obvious, rather performative pleasure. With his other hand, he gives Ben a glass, not asking him. He takes it, although he doesn't drink from it. 

The man looks to be about Ben’s own age, perhaps a little younger but not by much. He has a rather nervous expression and he’s dressed head-to-toe in formal wear that doesn’t seem to fit him altogether well. The sleeves are too long. And even without the Force, Ben can see that’s not _relaxed._ You only need look at him to know that.

‘My salary?’ Ben repeats.

‘You’re an assistant, right? Dressed like that. You must be an aide.’

‘Right,’ he says, although it isn’t. ‘An aide.’

He looks at him more closely, but without the Force it’s hard to know much about him. There are no thoughts he can access, nor emotions or desires. He is just a man, dressed in a slightly too-large suit, who apparently likes champagne. It unsettles Ben. Anyone might be good, or evil. There’s no knowing who is here and what they are. 

‘You’re Princess Organa’s, right?’ The man smiles. ‘She always brings the weirdest-looking people with her. No offense.’

His throat tightens and he feels suddenly frozen to the spot. The glass in his hand drops, but before it can reach the ground, he has recovered himself to catch it, still lightning fast, trembling between his fingers. The champagne has spilled to the ground, pooling on the wooden floor. There is a sharp, fragrant smell emanating from it. 

‘Good catch,' the man says, approvingly. 'Shame about the champagne, though.' 

Ben blinks.

'Princess Organa,' he repeats. 

'Yeah, and she brought her kid this time apparently,’ the man says. ‘Incredible. She does whatever she wants and they all just put up with it.’

'I -' 

Ben is thinking very fast. Leia is here, and apparently so is _he_. Some past version of him anyway. Is that why he remembers this room? His mother is here. The thought is too big to hold. She _died_. Ben was there when she did, in spirit at least. He saw her, and her understood that it was the last time he would ever see her. 

Perhaps seeing something of his confusion, the man shrugs, mistaking it for irritation. ‘Not to say it’s bad. I like it. It keeps things fresh, and that’s a much-needed thing around here.’ He holds out his hand to Ben. ‘Lucien Walvernis. Aide to Lord and Lady Lucana of the House of Rose.’

Ben, unsure what else to do, takes his hand. He's still thinking. Leia is here. He is. He's been here before. This is a memory, then. One that he'd buried, perhaps? Something from when he was very, very young? 

‘And your name is?’ Lucien asks, tone amused. ‘It’s customary to share yours when the other person shares his, you know.’

What _is_ his name? Ben doesn’t think Ben Solo is likely to be a particularly winning answer in this context. There’s already a Ben Solo here apparently.

He doesn’t know if this really _happening_ , as such, or whether it’s all just in his head, but there’s something about the situation that seems to demand caution, not the least of which is that he doesn’t have the Force, he doesn’t know how to get back out of this, and he doesn’t know what he has to do here except, he assumes, try to indicate to any Jedi that might be watching that he is not _only_ a murderous fucker who ruins people’s lives.

Basically, he really doesn’t want to make a false move but he doesn't understand the game. 

‘You’re not Haran, are you?’ Lucien suggests, when the silence grows around the question. ‘I heard she’d got a new one, Haran something or other.

He takes a risk. Why not?

‘That’s me,’ he says.

Lucien’s eyebrow raises. His lip quirks slightly. ‘No it isn’t,’ he says. ‘I just made the name up to see what you would do.’

There is a split second’s pause.

‘Get your story straight, for Kriff’s sake,’ Lucien says, amused more than anything else. 'You managed to get in. That's half the battle, you know. You want an audience with her, I suppose?'

'Her?' Ben repeats.

'Yeah, the woman whose name is so important to you it makes you drop your glass like a lunatic.' He sighs theatrically, as if to imply weariness with Ben and everything about him. 'Leia Organa?'

'An audience with her. Sure. Yes, that's what I want,' Ben says, vaguely, slightly incoherently. She is his own mother. He's never had to beg her audience. 

'Mmh.' Lucien smiles. 'Well, best of luck. You're not the only one. It'll be a busy evening for her, I should expect.'

With which he walks away, champagne glass still in hand, a half-smile on his face as if he and Ben have just had a perfectly pleasant and ordinary sort of conversation.

Where is he supposed to go? He looks around the room, and all he sees are small groups of people and other life forms, none of whom he knows or ever knew. Their conversations seem bright and cheerful, vapid perhaps. They ignore him, of course. Leia is not here, he thinks, as he scans the place quickly, but it looks like the party spans more than just one room, so that's not to say she's nowhere to be found.

He discretely keeps an eye on Lucien, who has blended seamlessly into another conversation by the looks of things, one with two women who are both well-dressed, in a style that Ben thinks is probably the height of fashion but which looks ridiculous to him. Lucien is laughing at something, and his voice is high and tinny.

Watching him, there’s still that nervousness there, but Ben thinks now it might in fact be anticipation. Lucien’s expecting something to happen. His eyes keep flicking around the room like someone, or something, hasn’t arrived yet. That's an odd thing. 

Was his comment vaguely threatening? Ben's not used to reading people without the Force. _A busy evening for her_. The way he'd said it was snide. There was an edge to it.

Quietly, Ben tries to fade into the background as much as he can. He edges to stand by the wall, where he has a good vantage point of the room.

He may not be a Jedi, he thinks, but he has to be prepared anyway. What would he do if he _did_ have the Force? He’d already know, wouldn’t he, if there was something or someone bad - evil, if you prefer - in the room. He’d already have a weapon, because if you’re a Jedi, everything is a weapon. To look at something is to have it in your hand. To have it in your hand is to be able to strike with it. To see it is to be able to control it.

There are various waiters milling around with drinks and food, passing around. He watches one of them, tracking where she goes, although he’s not prepared to let Lucien fade out of his view either so he doesn’t follow her. Should he try to find Leia and say – what exactly?

Ben has no idea what he could say to her. 

A rather small, blond-haired woman with a calm, steady expression of intelligence seems to be approaching him, dressed in a long, elegant ball gown crafted from blue and emerald fabric that seems to shimmer as she moves. She moves too quickly for it, he thinks. It’s trailing behind her as if it can’t keep up with the rhythm of her step. She doesn't belong in a ball gown.

‘Hi there,’ she says to him. ‘ _Ankenas._ ’ A small, dignified bow as she reaches him. 

‘ _Ankenas,'_ he replies, politely enough. His mother taught him that one, another lifetime ago. It’s an Alderaani greeting, the one made to a stranger who one believes to be a friend as well. He never expected to say it again in his life, certainly not as Kylo Ren, and not as Ben Solo either.

If this woman is Alderaani, she is a friend of Leia's. There is nothing more or less to it than that. And he's fairly clear that in this trial, whatever it is and wherever it's going, that puts her on the side he should be standing on too. So:

‘ _Mayat astratha,_ ’ he adds, which he very much hopes he remembers correctly as the way you tell someone you are happy to meet them. Presumably he remembers it well, because her face lights up into a warm smile.

‘The same to you,’ she says, her tone very kind. ‘I hoped I wasn’t wrong that you might be Alderaani. You look as if you belong to Leia’s contingent.’

‘That’s what he said too,’ Ben says, gesturing slightly towards Lucien. ‘It’s probably the outfit.’

‘Yes, I saw that you were speaking with Lucien,’ she says, ignoring this. ‘Could I ask what the nature of your conversation was?’

‘Nothing important,’ Ben replies, truthfully enough. 'Or I don't think so.' 

‘Ah,’ she says. ‘But Lucien never says anything that is truly unimportant. He often implies important things.'

'He said Leia'd have a busy evening,' Ben tells her. 'I didn't like the way he said it.' 

The woman grins.

‘You don’t belong at this party at all,’ she says, although her tone is light. ‘Giving an honest answer. You can’t be a politician. What’s your name?’

It’s the second time, and this time he’s ready. Fuck it: if they're watching, if it's a false step, that's only too bad for him. 

‘You can call me Ben Solo,’ he says, calmly enough. ‘And you are?’

She rolls her eyes.

‘You can call me Elaris Aranda, except in my case, it is actually my name.’

He knows that name. Elaris is distant family to the Organas and thus in a sense she is distant family to him too. Has he met her? He can’t remember. Maybe as a child? His mother knows her, of that he is quite certain. He knows her name from somewhere else though, in some context that is not about his mother, or not exclusively that. He tries to place it, but he can’t access the memory. It’s all too long ago. As Kylo Ren, he’d thrown this life away. He’d never thought about Alderaan or the Organas or any of it. But -

‘You know Leia Organa then,’ he says. ‘Your family is from Alderaan.’

She nods and gives him a cautious smile. ‘And you as well, I think?’

‘Oh, something like that,’ he says. Out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly thinks he sees something. There’s a disturbance at the far side of the room, near one of the doors. Two people are in a disagreement. They are two men, and their voices are slightly raised and rising. They are attracting attention.

‘But what’s your real name?’ Elaris asks. ‘ _Ben_.’

‘That is my real name.’ He gestures over, subtly, to the disagreement. ‘Don’t look too obviously. Do you know who those men are? There’s something happening over there.’

Elaris doesn’t give the impression of even turning her head. She’s very cool, scarcely reactive, but her eyes flick to the scene, and then, without any overt comment, return to Ben. 

‘Keep smiling, Fake Ben Solo,’ she says. ‘We’re making small talk. Nod at my conversation, won’t you? I’m terribly interesting.’

‘Mmh,’ he says. He nods, and gives her what he hopes is a slight smile. He’s really out practice with smiling but she doesn’t flinch, so he supposes it’s one of those skills you can regain reasonably quickly.

‘There’s going to be an attack tonight,’ she says, voice soft. ‘So Leia says, although my father doesn’t believe it.’

 _The First Order_ , he thinks, but doesn’t voice. If this is about the year he thinks it is, this was the time when they were gathering. Leia knew that, even now. All the freedom of the New Republic and the peace treaty scarcely signed, but the shadow of the Empire had not entirely faded, and in the darkness its remnants had never stopped growing, reforming, re-shaping, out there in the Unknown Regions, somewhere as yet still so distant.

‘And those men are…’

‘They’re known to us,’ Elaris says.

‘Us?’

The young waitress is moving towards the men, her face tense. Someone else, an older woman who he thinks is a senator although he can’t remember from where or if that is even true or just an impression she conveys, is saying something loudly to her companion, who’s dragging her away by the hand, moving her towards another room.

‘People on our side. People who, for example,’ and here she gives Ben an amused, beautiful smile, ‘speak Alderaani correctly to strangers.’

It’s too early for there be a _Resistance_ , he thinks. Much too early. Right now his mother was… well, still in the Senate for one thing. Still believing, at least in part, that the Republic could endure, that peace could win the day. As far as he’d ever understood it, this had been a happier time for her.

Tension runs through his body. He’s aware of the room, too aware of it. He needs the Force. He wants to be able to _see_ , and he just can’t. Something’s going to happen. He knows that, but he can’t get at it, can’t find the root of it. It’s maddening. He has to _know_ what he’s supposed to do.

 _The Force will guide you_ , Luke had always said. But without the Force, how can he be guided? Who is he without it?

He and Elaris, by unspoken agreement, are moving away. She is leading them, as if they are just a strolling young couple, two pretty people who are having a nice time together at a party.

‘And Lucien?’ he asks instead as they move.

Her eyebrow raises. ‘Let’s say that he’s complicated. He knows something’s going to happen tonight but he doesn’t know yet which way to press his advantage. He’ll go to the side who wins.’

‘You’re a Senator,’ Ben says. She nods, laughter creasing at the sides of her eyes.

‘Am I that obvious?’

Across the room, the dispute seems to have gathered still more attention. There is a small crowd gathering, interjecting, making something of a commotion. He looks at it, sizing it up.

‘That’s a distraction,’ he says. It seems obvious when he looks at it that that is what it must be. 

‘Yes,’ Elaris says. ‘But distractions can be dangerous, you know. Come with me.’

Suddenly, one of the men throws a punch. There’s a resounding thud and a scream of a woman, a high-pitched panic scream. He knows a lot about screaming, having heard more of it over the last fifteen years than anyone ever should have. That’s just panic, not pain. A grunt. The other man launching himself. The scattering of guests fleeing, gathering, shrieking. A glass breaking.

Elaris holds out her arm for Ben to link with his own. He takes it, cautious, and they walk hurriedly, side-by-side, through the room, across, away from the noisy crowd surrounding the fight, into one of the antechambers. As they enter, he thinks he catches a glimpse of his mother’s hair, out in the room beyond, but he can’t be sure, because the crowd is moving fast and there are so many people. He longs to see her, he realises. Fuck but he would give anything -

‘Say something charming,’ Elaris says. She smiles, almost regal. ‘People are watching us.’

‘I’m not known as charming,’ he says. She titters, as if this were funny. There’s a smashing sound, and some people are trying to get out of the building, looking panicked. Nearby he sees a woman in a massive formal gown tripping up over her skirt, tumbling.

Elaris pulls him, gently, towards one of the doors, a small wooden framed one that could almost be a decoration, it is so ornate. It slides open softly, leading into a dusty corridor. Together, they move inside, and gently she slides the door closed.

All at once her manner shifts. 

‘Right,’ Elaris says. She leans against the door, clearly to block it to anyone else who might want to access this place. ‘It’s time for you to give me your name, stranger.’

He sighs. ‘I already have.’

She shakes her head. ‘Ben Solo’s five years old, and the last time I saw him, he was levitating a chair round and round looking bored out of his mind, not that I can blame him.‘

‘Ben really is my name.’

‘And your family name? Because it sure as hell isn’t Solo.’

‘I can’t tell you,’ he says. ‘But I’m on your side. That’s all you need to know.’

Elaris looks as if she wants to protest.

‘You’re scared,’ he says, because he can see that she is. He feels scared himself in some odd way, to be so powerless, and to not know what he has to do.

Life would be simpler if this quest had come with an instruction, he thinks. Get the stone. Find the magic sword. Anything like that would have helped him, but here there’s nothing except a young, scared woman at a party.

He leans back against the door too, blocking it alongside her. He looks at her directly. ‘What’s going to happen tonight? What _is_ happening? What do you know?’

‘I –‘ she hesitates, clearly uncertain. ‘I don’t know why I trust you. I feel like I know you, but I’ve never seen you in my life. It’s the strangest thing.’

Behind the door, there is more noise, more commotion. Something is clearly happening out there. Someone’s voice is raised very high, but Ben doesn’t know the language he’s speaking. It’s not Alteraani and it’s not Basic either.

‘Where’s Leia?’ he asks. 

He has an urge to run into the fray, although he’s not sure what he can do there now. He feels so tense. The compulsion to act is so strong. He sees his hand raising, the wall coming down, people passing out with hardly a whisper. He could control all of this, if –

‘Keeping her son safe,’ Elaris says. ‘They were supposed to attack her brother, apparently. Some Jedi thing, I don’t understand exactly what or who they are or what it’s all about. She moved Ben here out of the way. But now it seems that he _was_ the target. ’

Ben blinks. He has no memory of any of this ever having happened.

It was just a boring evening, waiting, waiting, for his mother to be finally ready to take him home. Had it really happened, or only here in this … memory? Imagining? He supposes the point’s pretty incidental. It’s happening now. He’s not a Force projection. He call feel the weight of the door on his body, smell Elaris’s slightly cinnamon perfume and the faint odour of a polish or cleaning agent. The noise behind that door, someone trying to break their way in, isn’t a projection either. He thinks he hears the sound of a blaster. More screams, this time distressed, pain.

‘Luke’s coming here, then,’ he says, thinking fast. 

Luke was _always_ there in his childhood. He wasn’t exactly living in their house, but nor was he ever absent from their lives for long. Thinking about it, for the first time he wonders if there was a reason for that. Safety. Protection. If there’s a threat here, now, this is where Luke will be. He doesn’t need the Force to know what his uncle’s mind was in 10 ABY. He’ll come.

The thought makes him feel terrible.

‘Yes,’ Elaris concedes. ‘But they don’t know when he’ll get here. The kid’s…’ she shakes her head. ‘He’s _different_. You ever met him?’

‘Once or twice.’

‘He can handle himself,’ she says. ‘Even if he is just a kid. But Leia’s pretty worried. She got the message to me, and I thought because you were with her, you’d want to know too. Although now I’m not sure you _are_ with her.’

Outside, beyond, there is the sound of what is now unmistakeably blaster fire. Someone’s trying to run. These are the noises he’s heard every day for so many long years as Kylo Ren. He hates them. Over the years, he’s grown to despise these sounds, to know them so intimately, to understand how pain and fear sound, how to create and shape them. There is a new noise too, many different hands beating against stone or metal. They’ve sealed the doors, then.

Elaris’s face is set, very hard. Neatly, from within a fold of her dress, she pulls out a blaster of her own.

‘He’s supposed to save the world or something,’ she says. ‘Leia believes it. Says he’s made of pure light. We have to keep him safe.’

‘I –‘

‘They’re not gone,’ she adds. ‘The people who blew up Alderaan, I mean. They’ll come back one day. Everyone knows that.’

Outside someone shouts, a call for order, a plea for sanity to resume.

‘I’m sure they will,’ Ben says.

He is, at that.

‘I’m supposed to defend here,’ she tells him. ‘Leia’s got people everywhere. _Are you with us?’_

He doesn’t have to be a Jedi to know that the answer is yes. Even if he weren’t trying to reconnect to the Force, to show that he’s a better person than he was, the answer seems pretty clear. This woman is trying to save _his_ life, but also to help his mother.

Plus, if he’s honest, he prefers to be at the side of the door that’s not full of enemies and with a woman with a blaster than on the _other_ side of the door. Especially without the Force. 

‘Yes,’ he says.

Elaris smiles. ‘I knew that you would be. You had the same kind of expression as Leia’

Several things happen at once. The first is that there’s a tremendous push of someone trying to get in through the door they’re both leaning against. Instinctively, even though it’s useless, Ben pushes back with the Force to keep the door closed. It doesn’t work. He has to just use his _strength_. Fuck it. The second is that he hears what is unmistakably his mother’s voice out there shouting _this way, hurry_. The third is that he thinks he hears, through the crowd, a noise that he’s known for his whole life: the thrum of a lightsaber, Luke’s, and his uncle’s footstep.

‘Luke’s here,’ he tells Elaris.

She smiles through gritted teeth. The weight against the door is getting stronger. Whoever is out there, they’re going to break through sooner or later and it’s more likely to be sooner. It seems basically inevitable.

He could overpower her, he supposes. It wouldn’t be that difficult, even without the Force. He knows how to hurt someone. He could take her blaster, and then –

Well, and then what exactly? What’s he doing here? It’s 10 ABY and he’s five years old. He has no idea what he’s supposed to do. He doesn’t really _want_ to overpower her. He just wants to – well, right now, to get to Leia, or to Luke. To see them again, as they were then. To make sure that they are safe.

The feeling of wanting is almost overwhelming. His mother is dead, and she’s also not more than a few meters away, just out there beyond that door. Is she safe? But she’s with Luke, he thinks. Of course she’s safe. She doesn’t die here. 

The door thuds ominously. Any second now. He’s not strong enough to hold out against – what? Five people? More? Elaris’s face is set. The blaster’s in her hand; she’s preparing. The door crack and -.

Suddenly, with a thud, he feels an intense, incredible sensation. He’s being pushed, hard, against the door, as if by strong wind, so strong as to blow him away, to crush him to dust, but it’s come from nowhere at all. It winds him, leaves him almost gasping for breath. There are shouts outside, and the sound of thumping, something falling heavy to the ground.

The thudding against the door stops. There’s a cry of frustration. Next to him, Elaris sinks, down to the ground, passed out. He feels light-headed himself. Fuck, he thinks. What was that?

Although, of course, he _knows_ what it is. It’s the Force, and Luke is holding the door closed, keeping whoever is out there from entering this place. Somewhere down this corridor then, he supposes, is himself, the five-year-old he was, if any of this is real and if it ever happened, because there could be no other reason for Luke to want to keep this door closed. 

There’s no pressure against the door now. Instead, almost gently, it slides open, knocking him back to the side of it. He falls, because he hasn’t got the Force to buffer him, and no one could possibly stand against Luke if he’s in this mood. Even Kylo Ren couldn’t have, not really. He always knew that.

There are running steps, closer, closer. A single bound and yes, Luke is there, rushing past him, completely ignoring him as he runs. Leia is right behind him. There’s the thrum of the lightsaber again, a bright light, shining. Ben’s heart tightens. His mother is alive, she’s _alive_.

‘Ben!’ Leia is shouting. Luke’s shouting it too. Both of them are running. He catches a glimpse of her face and he thinks his heart might be breaking. She’s younger than he’s ever seen her. She’s a memory, something he’s stored, but never seen, not like this. She runs past him, scarcely noticing him, apparently desperate to get to her son. He is just a man on the ground at the side of the door Luke’s just blasted open; he doesn’t even register, so desperate she is to just get to Ben, _her_ Ben -

Next to him, Elaris groans weakly. He looks out, into the room beyond the now wide open door. Luke seems to have done a good job: there are startled guests, mumbling, adjusting their hair, their clothes, all nervously looking around, trying to gather themselves. No one is attacking anyone else. If there are bodies, they aren’t visible now. He stands up, not sure which way to move. His limbs ache painfully, like he’s just been slammed into a door by a massive, unstoppable force – which is precisely what has happened. He leans himself against the wall, groaning slightly.

The sounds of footfall again from behind him, further down the corridor. A conversation, distant, then closer. Soft voices. His mother’s voice. Luke’s. And then, hurriedly, they are there, moving back towards him. Leia’s carrying him, Ben, in her arms, a little boy with a mess of dark hair, looking sleepy and touselled. He’s clearly just woken up and they are running with him, Luke’s face set in a mask of rage and anxiety that Ben knows so well; the face he has when he has to fight.

‘Uncle Luke came to take us home,’ Leia is saying, and her voice is gentle and calm. ‘He knew it was a boring party.’

‘Very boring,’ Luke’s saying. His lightsaber’s still up though.

‘Why saber?’ the little boy says, looking at it, sleepily. ‘Is it a training party? Is that why it’s boring?’

‘Yes, darling,’ Leia says. She kisses his hair, tightens her arms around him. ‘It’s just a training party.’

They come closer to Ben, who’s watching them, transfixed. He’s never seen himself like this. His mother, Luke. _Family_. They are going to walk straight past him again. His younger self eyes him, indifferently, not recognising him, not knowing, eyes half-lidded with sleep, but then -

‘Hello,’ little Ben says to him. Leia looks too then, gives him half a smile. There’s nothing in her eyes, no flicker of recognition. He’s too old and she has her real son her arms. He feels sick. Looking at her breaks his heart and re-breaks it. She is so young and healthy and whole, and her son hasn’t ruined her life, because he’s only five, and he’s just a kid in her arms.

 _I’m sorry_ , he thinks. _I’m so sorry._ He hopes that he isn’t crying, but he thinks there’s a distinct possibility that he might be.

‘You must be a friend of Elaris,’ Leia says politely to him. ‘Thank you for your help. May the Force be with you.’

‘May the Force be with you,’ little Ben echoes from his mother’s arms. He closes his eyes, clearly intent on returning to sleep. His mother strokes his hair, possessive, gentle. She looks down on him like he’s the most precious thing in the world.

‘Tell her sorry from me,’ Luke says, gesturing to Elaris, who’s still on the ground but weakly stirring. ‘It wasn’t intentional. Sometimes I get a bit carried away.’

He makes eye contact with Ben then, and there’s a sudden jolt. Luke knows something, he must feel something, because he looks, and for a wild second it seems like he’s about to –

But then the moment’s gone. Ben understands. Luke was looking at him with the Force, and there was nothing there to see. He’s no one to them. He’s no one at all in this story, not yet, not as the person he is now. 

Leia and Luke walk away, out into the room beyond, Ben in their arms. He wants to follow, wants desperately to go home with them. He remembers this. Luke _did_ come to collect them from the boring party. They all went home to Coruscant. He remembers being sleepy, but not a great deal else. Although there are bodies on the floor, and the party’s hardly regained itself, the little kid is just asleep in his mother’s arms. He is heedless to it all.

No one had ever told him about the attack. No one had ever told him that someone had wanted to hurt him and that Luke had come to protect him. He’d never known a thing about it.

Around him, there’s a fuzz of light, white, bright, fading in and out. The room seems to be spinning, or reshaping itself somehow. He tries to hold onto the wall, the door, anything, but nothing seems to be reachable; he’s holding air, slipping through his fingers – slipping – slipping –

Elaris looks at him, and her eyes are very blue and wide open, staring up at him. She blinks. Her smile is very fuzzy, but it’s a nice, kind one.

‘We did it,’ he thinks she says. ‘He’s okay.’

Everything fades to black. And then, with a jolt, the world resets.

He looks around him. It’s not the party. It’s not anything like that. This is a quiet, still place. He’s looking at walls, white painted. There’s a print of a mountain scene, something he recognises. That’s Alderaan, isn’t it? That’s one of his mother’s paintings.

This is his home in Coruscant, he thinks. And, right, he’s in the training room at the back of the house, the place where he’d always play with Uncle Luke, where they used to practice using the Force sometimes and where he had a library, all the books he most liked to read –

He turns around, expecting to see the windows that lead out to the back gardens, and the shelves, and the door to the kitchen, and everything that he remembers from this place.

Sure enough, they’re still there. And standing right in front of them is a young boy, perhaps nine or ten years old. He’s got dark hair and a lively, almost amused expression. He’s holding a lightsaber in his hand and it’s almost dangerously tilted, like it could at any moment set the bookshelf on fire, if he swings it the wrong way. He looks at Ben, and his expression is one of surprise, but not fear, not even shock.

‘Hello,’ he says. ‘Are you another Jedi? My name’s Ben Solo and I’m going to be a Jedi too someday.’ 


	3. 15 ABY: How to Hold a Lightsaber - An Instruction Manual for Precocious Jedi Children

‘You don’t look like Obi-Wan,’ his younger self tells him. ‘Or Yoda, or any of the others. What’s your name?’

Ben doesn’t like the way he’s holding that saber. Fucking hell, did Luke _let him_ carry around a sword like that, on his own in the house?

‘I don’t really have a name,’ he tells him, because he supposes he could say Kylo Ren, but that’s the last thing he wants to do, and he could tell the truth but that’s going to be complicated and upsetting.

‘Oh.’ His younger self expresses no obvious concern about this. ‘You look a bit like Oberon Lightfoot. From the book I’m reading about Galactic History.’

Ben smiles. ‘You can call me that, if you want.’

‘Okay. Watch, Oberon.’ He swings the lightsaber precariously.

‘Don’t – err – don’t do that,’ Ben says, moving towards himself hurriedly.

He’s _tiny_. It’s impossible to believe he was ever so young as this. And also, if he thinks about it, he definitely doesn’t remember being visited by the ghost of Oberon Lightfoot, whoever he was, and he thinks he would have remembered, because it wasn’t like Jedi visitors were an everyday phenomenon. He doesn’t think this is the past; he isn’t travelling in time to be here. This is surely a memory, or something like one anyway.

Still, the way little Ben’s swinging the saber, he’ll be doubly a memory if he’s not careful, because – he swings to the side to avoid it, and crash, sure enough, several books fall to the ground, singed with the burn of a saber. There’s a distinct smell of burning paper, one he remembers from a very distant time.

‘Oops,’ his younger self says. ‘Sorry about that. I’m still learning. Uncle Luke says that you shouldn’t play with sabers but he’s got one and it’s _awesome_.’

‘Yeah. He’s pretty good with a saber,’ Ben says, because he supposes it’d be churlish to tell his younger self that in fact he thinks Luke’s skill was at times wildly over-rated and if he’d been a bit less into Jedi hero-worship, which would always inevitably have let him down, the whole thing might have -

‘Are _you_ any good?’ the child asks him, curiously. ‘Like other Jedi. I want to see if you’re good.’

With which, apropos of nothing, he throws an activated, deadly weapon straight at Ben’s face. Luckily, fucking luckily, Ben’s spent all of his life from aged eleven and onwards training to fight with a saber, and even without the Force, he catches its handle neatly, swerving out of the way of the blade, which cuts so close he can feel its heat on his skin. Only Rey and Luke have ever got that close to cutting him before. Even Snoke –

Fuck but he doesn’t want to think about Snoke.

His heart is thumping. He’s had a lot of things thrown at him, but not usually by wildly overconfident ten-year-olds, and certainly not by himself.

‘You really shouldn’t throw them when they’re switched on,’ he tells himself. ‘It’s quite dangerous.’

‘Yeah.’ The younger Ben grins. ‘But that’s how I can see if you’re any good. You caught it.’

‘Yeah, lucky for you I did. And if you’d slashed my face in half?’

‘You’re only a projection,’ he says lightly. ‘I can’t hurt a projection.’

That is very doubtful, Ben thinks. He flicks the saber off and stashes it in his pocket. His younger self looks at him, guileless and apparently curious as to what he might say next. He seems completely at peace. He’s dressed in a blue top with a picture of a spaceship on it, something gold and blocky and he looks just so… _young_. He’s got gappy teeth.

‘You can hurt me,’ he tells him. ‘I’m a projection, but I’m more anchored to physical reality that usual. Look.’ He taps his hand against the wall, indicating his corporality. His younger self widens his eyes.

‘Ohh,’ he says. ‘You can touch things. That’s not like Obi-Wan at all. Then I shouldn’t have thrown the saber at you…’ He stands up slightly straighter and modulates his voice into what Ben remembers as his attempting to be polite. ‘I’m very sorry, Mr Lightfoot.’

‘Yeah.’ He shrugs. ‘Don’t – err – worry about it, Ben. Lots of people have thrown things at me. I usually catch them.’

‘Jedi catch things,’ Ben says. ‘Uncle Luke can catch _bullets_.’

‘Yeah, he can.’

‘Do you think he could catch a ship? If one was falling out of the sky? If it were the Falcon?’

‘Probably.’

‘That’s so cool!’ His younger self mimes what Ben supposes he takes to be Luke preventing the Millennium Falcon from falling out of space, lifting his hand and crunching his fingers into a fist.

Ben smiles at him.

‘I think it’d be more like this,’ he says, and he lifts his own hand, as if he were suspending a ship in mid-air, as Kylo Ren had done with the transporter in the desert. ‘You don’t need to close your fist. You’d keep your hand open.’

His younger self watches, interested. ‘Why?’

‘Well, that’s… that’s how it works when you have the Force. You just know what to do.’

‘Oh.’

‘But the Falcon won’t fall,’ he adds, because he’s not sure if his younger self is worried about that. ‘It’s a very strong ship.’

‘I know that. Daddy says it’s one of the strongest ships in the world, actually. And Leia says that it’s one of the shadiest too.’

‘Where are your parents?’ Ben asks. He doesn’t exactly mind being here with his younger self, but he’s fairly sure two fully-grown adults are going to be less enchanted by the presence of a stranger in their son’s room, particularly one with an almost self-evidently fake name who knows a lot about them. And if you add Luke into the mix, and you end up with a scenario in which he has to explain to all of them that he’s here atoning and in his reality, all of them are now dead, thanks to him -

‘Away,’ his younger self says. ‘Don’t know. Daddy’s in the Falcon on a mission and Leia’s in the Senate.’

‘So who’s with you here?’

‘No one right now…’ Ben says. ‘Uncle Luke, but he’s had to go outside for a bit because there was a … _disturbance_.’

‘In the Force?’

‘Yes, a big one. And I wanted to help,’ his younger self tells him, voice brimming with eagerness, ‘but he told me to stay here and practice with the saber and how to make doors close with my mind. But that’s so boring. I’ve been doing that for _years and years._ ’

Ben thinks about this. He remembers plenty of times when he was alone in the house with Luke, and sometimes he did leave him occupied in a task he assigned, doing some pointless Jedi thing. At the time, it always seemed very routine, but he’s starting to wonder…

‘Did Uncle Luke seem … _stressed_?’ he asks. ‘Or worried about something. Was it a bad disturbance?’

But little Ben just shrugs, blank. The thought of real danger clearly hasn’t occurred to him. ‘I don’t know. He said he’d be back soon. Can I have my saber back? You can show me tricks.’

‘Not if you’re going to set fire to things,’ Ben tells him, but he puts a smile in his voice. ‘But I can show you and you can watch me, if you want.’

‘Okay.’

So he takes out the lightsaber, and activates it easily. He parries with it, swinging it round. He throws it up and catches it back as it spins.

He misses the Force, but ultimately, it’s just a weapon. It’s still something you can use without being chosen, although it doesn’t feel quite the same like this. It doesn’t come as easy to him, to intuit where the saber blade will fall or how it will land in his fingers. Before it felt like water, and now it’s something harder, more dangerous and uncertain. He’s navigating through rock.

Still, his younger self seems to enjoy it. He’s watching with rapt eyes.

Ben circles it, an old trick he learned from Luke when he was a teenager because he doesn’t think he can show any of the tricks he learned from Snoke, and turns it off as it falls, so that it lands harmlessly in his palm.

‘It hurts a lot, doesn’t it?’ his younger self says, seemingly suddenly worried. ‘If it cuts you, I mean?’

‘Yeah. It hurts a lot. It’s a dangerous weapon. But when you train, you learn how to use it so it doesn’t ever cut you.’

‘Uncle Luke’s going to train me,’ Ben says. ‘When I’m 12 I’m going to his temple with him and all the other kids will be Jedi too and we’ll fight each other, but we aren’t going to cut each other.’

 _Until you slash some of their throats_ , Ben thinks, but of course does not say. _Until you start to kill them for sport. Until you hunt them and corrupt them and maim them and kill._

‘I’m looking forward to it a lot,’ his younger self tells him, sounding intensely earnest and self-consciously grown-up. ‘I’ll learn about Jedi things. Like how to be brave and self- self-sacro-‘ He breaks off.

‘Self-sacrificing?’ Ben suggests, and the word sticks in his throat because if anyone was self-sacrificing, it was never, ever him. Not until it was too late.

‘Yeah, and _cool_!’

‘It will be cool,’ he tells his younger self. ‘You’re going to learn a lot there. You should listen to Uncle Luke and – and not to anyone else.’

But of course, he’s only ten and he doesn’t understand what Ben means. He doesn’t seem to even really hear the words, because the next thing he says is, ‘Anyway, can you fly?’

‘Fly?’

‘Yeah. In _space_. If you’re a super-strong Jedi you can fly even when there’s no atmosphere and you don’t need to breathe.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Ben says. ‘Maybe some Jedi can, but I can’t do that. And I wouldn’t like to try because it sounds quite dangerous and stupid, and being a Jedi isn’t about being stupid.’ He swallows. ‘To be honest it’s not really about… what you can do anyway. It’s about the way you behave. Your feelings.’

‘Like being a good person?’ his younger self asks, curious. ‘You mean that kind of feeling?’

‘Well, yeah, and …’ Ben tries to find the words. He’s profoundly inadequate, he thinks. He’s the Supreme Leader. He’s destroyed worlds and lives – not the least of which was his own – in pursuit of power that in the end, he didn’t even want all that much compared to the things he’d always had. How can he lecture this little kid about what it means to be a Jedi?

On the other hand, he thinks, how can he not?

‘It means that when you do something, when you use the Force, you’re doing what you think is going to make the world better for everyone. Not just for yourself and your friends but everyone, even people you don’t know. You don’t always know for sure, but you try anyway. You just have to trust that you’re doing the right thing,’ he says, wondering if he sounds like a lunatic to a ten-year-old.

His younger self seems to take it on board though, because he just nods. ‘Like when I know that Dad’s ship is safe,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure why but I feel it.’

He smiles. He remembers that feeling, and he isn’t sure if that was really the Force or if that was just him being a kid, but maybe it was something of both. So he just says, ‘Yeah, a bit like that.’

‘You’ve been here a long time for a projection,’ the younger Ben tells him. ‘Aren’t you getting tired Oberon?’

‘I’m fine,’ he says, assuming that this means that Ben is bored with him, rather than actually solicitous for his wellbeing. He thinks. ‘But would it be okay if I used your connecto-holo? There are some things I need to check.’

The young Ben nods, utterly unconcerned by this. ‘Sure. But can I have my lightsaber back now? I want to practice and Uncle Luke told me to keep it activated the whole time until he came back.’

That clinches it.

Ben is certain, quite certain, that the only reason an adult Jedi would tell an untrained little kid to keep an active lightsaber on their person is because there was a threat to them that was _worse_ than the risk of their being impaled by a burning sword made of pure light or their burning the house down.

He’s thinking about the party; his mother and Luke running with him in their arms.

He’s also thinking about how he just faded out of view, disappearing into a different memory of a different time, or whatever this is. If he disappears again, and he’s taken the kid’s saber with him and something happens…but nothing did happen, he reminds himself. This is his own past, and none of this happened.

And he needs a saber. He really does _not_ like being without a weapon, a real one that he can use.

Still, there’s quite a difference between a little kid under attack not having a weapon and an adult male not having one, so –

‘You can have it back,’ he tells himself. ‘But you mustn’t swing it around like an idiot or throw it at my face.’

Little Ben nods and, doubting his judgment as he does it, Ben does hand him the lightsaber, very carefully, handle into his open palm in the way that he’s been taught to give someone a saber and which he hasn’t done for years because as Kylo Ren the whole thing seemed absurd and overly formal and pathetically ritualistic. He watches as Ben activates it.

‘Okay?’ he says.

‘ _Obviously._ ’ His younger self grins. ‘I’m at one with the Force, you know. I’m going to be the best Jedi there is.’

‘Sure,’ Ben says, trying to keep his tone as neutral as possible because, absurdly, and even though it’s all terribly sad, he thinks he wants to laugh. ‘That’s – a big ambition. Can you show me where your holo is?’

He’s directed to the little triangular screen, which serves as an entertainment centre, source of information, and communicator. It’s so old-fashioned and he can barely remember how you use one like this, but he supposes it can’t be that difficult, because tech can’t have changed _that_ much and he did use this thing a lot, when he was nine years old. He opens it up and the console seems straightforward.

His younger self has padded away from him, disinterested, and is staring out of the window, lightsaber raised. Ben wonders if he can sense something out there. It certainly looks like he can.

He types into the communicator’s search function. _Senator Elaris Aranda_ , because that’s who he’s thinking about.

He’s so sure he’s heard her name somewhere, some bad memory, something that made his mother’s eyes cloud over with sadness, but he can’t remember what it was and why. He wants to know: did it really happen? Like that, at that party? He thinks that if he can understand that, he can understand something about the place he is in, these trials, and what he is supposed to do here. 

There, flickering up on the holo projection is the woman he has just seen, her blue eyes still as beautiful, and her face not aged a day from the moment he saw her then.

Year of death, the senate page says. 5AYE, during a Senate Reception hosted at the Sheltarnis Consulate on Coruscant. The assailants were believed to have been a rogue band of former Empire loyalists, keep to disrupt the peace process that was set in motion during the reception by Princess Leia Organa and, latterly, Lucien Walpurgis, the then aide of House of Rose, now acting Senator.

He scans the words.

There’s information about her funeral, which was given in state and seemed to have been a grand affair. There’s a photograph of a large gathering of dignitaries, including his mother, who’s standing there looking pale and tired, lost in thought and sad, without his father.

Nothing much about how exactly she died at the party. But, he thinks about it, and he can see it – if _he_ hadn’t been there, which he apparently hadn’t, she would have held the door alone, surely?

How long would she have been able to do that for? Not long enough for Luke to slam them both against the door with the Force. He wouldn’t have got there in time; she could never have done it, if it took both her _and_ Ben all their strength to keep the door closed.

The door would have burst open, and she would have been confronted by multiple people. All she had was a blaster.

She was standing between him, his five-year-old self, and – whoever it was out there who wanted to harm him. She’d chosen to follow Leia’s orders, and she’d died for it.

Was she the first person who died because of him, Ben thinks? That woman, with her nice soft eyes and her smile, who hadn’t done anything wrong, who’d barely even known him, but who had believed he was supposed to be the good that would save the galaxy?

The holoprojection image flickers, turning into another, one of her with a man who must have bene her father, an older, serious-looking man dressed in traditional Alderaan clothing. Ben looks at her. She had really believed in his mother and in him, and he’d never known the first thing about her. She was just a name, some vague association of something not-very-good and not-very-interesting.

He clicks through the information, and he reads between the lines. ‘Disaffected Empire Loyalists’ is a phrase that comes up a lot, which he supposes they mean the entity that would and did become the First Order. But there, he finds an old news story about the attack. There’s a quote from someone who’d been at the party, her face flashing up on screen. She’s dressed beautifully, an ornate woman whose skin is mottled like a peacock, iridescent and shimmering. 

‘They were looking for Leia Organa’s son, Ben Solo,’ the woman says. ‘She’d brought him to the party, you know. They tried to get to the room where he was. I saw it all. I don’t think it was anything to do with the peace process. I think it was to do with _him_. But I don’t know why, I just don’t know…’

There’s a sudden noise, a tapping sound. He spins around, lightning fast. But it’s only his younger self, playing with a book, lifting it with the Force, tapping it against the wall, idly, letting it float calmly. He doesn’t even seem to be aware that he’s doing it.

He hadn’t saved her, then. He hadn’t even been there. But it had felt so real, Ben thought. It wasn’t just a memory, it couldn’t have been that, it just _couldn’t_ –

‘You feel fuzzy,’ his younger self tells him, turning away from the window, by which Ben supposes he means he can feel his distress. ‘Did you not like the holo?’

‘Not really,’ Ben says, truthfully. ‘I found out something I didn’t like very much.’

‘Oh,’ his younger self says. ‘You feel sad. Sometimes I know when people feel things, and because of the Force. But I’m not allowed to tell them I know, because it’s private.’

‘I know,’ Ben tells him. He thinks about it. If this is just a memory, if he can do _anything_ but it can’t make any difference… what’s the point? He might as well just slump against the wall, pick up a book, and enjoy a nice bit of relaxation, and wait for the Jedi to pull him out of this wretched atonement pit of his family history. Nothing _matters_.

But then his younger self smiles at him, very kindly, with those gappy teeth and his soft brown eyes, and he looks so painfully young.

‘But I thought I could tell you, because you have the Force as well,’ he says. ‘So it’s okay that you’re sad, Mr Lightfoot. Everybody gets sad sometimes and everybody gets happy sometimes. I get sad all the time about…many different things.’

And Ben knows that he does, and it’s very hard to feel that this doesn’t matter. So, he just smiles back.

‘You should… get your dad to take you on a trip when you feel sad,’ he tells his younger self. ‘That’s what I did when I was little. We would go to an exciting new planet sometimes and it was always… fun.’

‘Yes,’ his younger self says, but his voice sounds a bit far away. ‘Only my dad’s not here again.’

‘He’ll be back,’ Ben says, because in the end Han _was_ always back, sooner or later.

‘I s’ppose.’ The younger Ben looks thoughtful. ‘But you’re going to go soon. I can sense it, like you’re getting all far away. And Uncle Luke’s going to – he’s nearly here so don’t worry about me –‘

The room is indeed fading out. It’s that same light feeling, the same dislocation of space and time. Ben’s looking at his younger self, and he’s got his hand up in a gesture of goodbye.

‘Goodbye Oberon,’ he’s saying. ‘Goodbye, thank you for visiting me.’

‘Be _good_ ,’ Ben tells him, although it’s perfectly useless because he isn’t going to be good at all. ‘Tell Uncle Luke if you start hearing voices in your head, or if –‘ it’s very hard for him to focus, but he really wants to try. ‘If people like me show up in your room in a Force vision but you don’t know who they are. You have to always tell Uncle Luke, because -’

The room fades completely out of view. Dizzyingly, everything spins. His younger self is completely gone.

‘Because it’s probably a fucking awful monster who wants your power,’ he finishes, although it’s only to himself, because he’s standing in what might be a loading bay, somewhere full of metal, concrete and noise that is clearly industrial, and over in the corner, he sees, his heart sinking down into his chest, is a ship that is undeniably the Millennium Falcon and it looks like –

Surely not but it looks a _lot_ to Ben like this isn’t a loading bay at all. It’s a scrap yard and fucking hell, that’s an impounder, and in a few short minutes, the Falcon’s going to be crushed to a cube.


	4. Nobody Needs a Coolant Reactor in 17 ABY

‘I don’t think so,’ a voice says, and it’s the voice that Ben has known for his whole life. His father doesn’t sound particularly urgent, but then, did he ever? 

‘Watch the metal,’ Han says, and he swings into Ben’s view, coming around the corner, walking fast towards his ship, in front of Ben. ‘I’ve got the money. Let’s just keep it relaxed, Shalan.’

The impounder groans to a clinking halt, and out from its cabin steps a blue-skinned entity, dressed almost head-to-toe in medallions and pieces of metal that wink and sparkle, golden and bright. He has an ill-favoured look, mean and unwelcoming.

‘Got my money?’ he, or she – Ben isn’t really sure – squalls. ‘Show me.’

Han nods. ‘Sure thing. It’s right here, so just nice and easy, back away from my ship.’

Han raises his left hand, in which he’s holding something that might indeed be –

But then, behind him, in his right hand, Ben sees that he’s holding a blaster, and with tremendous speed, Han’s raising it, shooting directly at Shalan, who swerves hard to avoid it, and who’s drawing a weapon of his own; an ancient-looking rusted blaster of some kind, encrusted with diamond and glinting gold, aiming direct at Han Solo, who’s spinning out of the way, back behind another rusted, broken ship.

There’s fire. Ben moves fast, the way he’s always moved. Instinctive, light, and even now – fearless. He jumps it, ducking the blast where someone has exploded what must have once a fuel unit, where smoke is now billowing, fire spreading forth. He gets towards Shalan, although he has no idea what his plan is, and Han’s shouting something, but he can’t hear it over the noise of the fire and the machinery.

He thinks it might be ‘duck’ though, so he does – and then there’s another round of blaster fire, which narrowly misses both him and Shalan, who is roaring with irritation and who’s reaching out towards Ben, to attack, he supposes, or to kill, or at the very least to stop from interfering. Han’s out of sight, and range, behind the ship, but it won’t be that long before –

Shalan’s lifting the blaster, and Han’s nearly in sight-line because for some reason, god knows what, he’s stepped out of his secure spot like he’s going to charge at them or something, and -

Ben punches Shalan very hard in the face and as he does it, it occurs to him that he’s never actually punched anyone before without the Force. He isn’t used to having to use brute physical strength in this crude way, but hey, he thinks, his hand stinging from the impact. It works, except that’s the good news and the bad news is, he’s pretty sure this whole place is toast, because the fire’s spreading like crazy, so he really has to get out of here, get his father out of here. There’s acrid smoke in the air, and Shalan is down. Ben manages to grab his blaster, simultaneously to which Han has run at them both, and he’s dragging Ben forward, towards the Falcon, pulling him with his hand, as if he knows Ben, as if –

There’s no time. In seconds the doors of the Falcon are opening, and Ben and Han are both at a run towards the control room, and the doors are locking and Han’s cursing but he’s already preparing to take off, and Ben, automatic, as if by muscle-memory, is helping him and fastening in to the co-pilot’s seat, just like he used to –

Then, with a whirring and slightly ominous clunk of the engine, they’re off. There is a brief moment of silence and it’s all happened too fast for Ben to really compute yet that what is now real, the situation he is now in, is that he’s alone in the Millennium Falcon with his father, who looks to be about 20 years younger than the last time Ben saw him and who, plainly, has no idea that the man he has just pulled out of a scrap yard fight is his son. The gold and diamond blaster is still in his pocket, cold and solid. 

Han looks him up and down, and it’s the strangest feeling Ben has ever had, because there’s nothing there in his father’s eyes, no love, disappointment, anxiety, nothing at all. Just some strange, vague flicker of…

Han suddenly grins.

‘On the run, huh?’ he says.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Yeah.’ Han keeps smiling. ‘You were looking to get a cheap ship, my friend? Some beaten up old rust bucket that bunch of krifflords were gonna impound. Settle up, drive fast, get away from your problems?’

‘I –‘

Han’s smile broadens.

‘Kid,’ he says, and Ben’s heart flips. It’s not _real_ , he tells himself. It’s not, it’s not. ‘I’m not asking. You did me a favour, knocking him out like that. All’s fair, as long as you don’t scam me, hurt me or hurt my ship.’

‘No,’ Ben says. ‘I – that’s not my plan.’

He’s finding it difficult. The numbness is wearing off now, the sheer shock of combat and flight, and here he is, alone with his dad for the first time since –

He can’t think about it. He just can’t.

‘What was your plan then?’ Han says, lightly. ‘Apart from getting involved in someone else’s fight in that shithole.’

‘I don’t know,’ Ben says and his voice sounds uneven and desperate. He wants to put his arms around his dad, to hold him, to tell him how sorry he is, or how sorry he will be, but he –

‘Kriff,’ Han says. ‘It’s no big deal. Where you headed? I’ll give you a ride…’

‘I’m not headed anywhere.’

‘Nowhere it is, then,’ Han says. He smiles. ‘Well, I’ll take you to Coruscant. That’s about as near nowhere as a place can be, in my opinion. What’s your name?’

‘Oberon,’ Ben says, because he supposes it’s as good a name as any. ‘Lightfoot.’

‘Looks like you know ships like mine,’ Han says, thoughtfully. ‘You a good pilot?’

‘Sure,’ Ben says, neutral. He doesn’t add that he knows specifically how to pilot the Falcon, that he could do it blind, because Han himself taught him when he was seven years old. ‘I’m not bad.’

‘Not bad like you’re appalling? Or not bad like, false modesty?’ Han says, as he begins to walk towards the living quarters. ‘Because I have to warn you, my ship’s got a few bumps right now.’

Ben follows him.

‘Bumps?’ he says.

‘Give or take.’ His father turns his head to smile and it’s a rogue’s smile, one that Ben remembers so well. ‘I sold a couple of parts. Nothing you really _need_ , but you know... some people might say a ship flies better with them.’

Ben, almost automatically, follows him inside the main ship. It looks… exactly the same as always. It smells of Wookie and cigarette smoke and engine oil. There’s a coffee cup that’s half-finished and a slightly fusty odour that he can’t place but which speaks of a lack of freshness to the whole place, and a leafed-through magazine and seeing it all again makes him want to cry.

‘Drink?’ Han says. ‘It’ll be a while on cruise before we get anywhere worth navigating. That is, if the engine holds out.’

He opens something for himself, and Ben just nods, so Han throws him a can, which he catches reflexively, without a blink, almost as if the Force were still with him.

‘Kriff,’ Han says. ‘You’ve got lightning reflexes kid. The way you launched at Shalan just now, and how you just flung yourself inside the Falcon like you knew where you were going, knew exactly what to do…’ He pauses, reflecting. ‘You’re not a Jedi, are you? I’ve got a thing with Jedi turning up in my life.’

Ben sits down, opposite his father, takes a sip of the drink he’s been offered, which is cool, refreshing and indisputably alcoholic. He takes a deep breath. 

‘I’m not a Jedi,’ he says, and even though he’s said it a thousand times in his life as Kylo Ren, saying it now, to his father, in the Millennium Falcon, while his younger self is out there spinning lightsabers around and wondering if he’ll be able to fly in space one day, feels like the most tremendous betrayal. _Sorry_ , he thinks in his head, to Luke, to anyone who is there. _I’m so sorry._

‘But I … believe in the Force,’ he adds.

‘Oh sure.’ Han shrugs. ‘Who doesn’t? I’ve seen stuff wouldn’t believe. My wife and kid are both full-on with it. And my brother-in-law actually. It’s a family thing.’

Ben can’t trust himself to speak. He just looks at his dad, nodding, or what he hopes is a nod but might be some other gesture, he has no idea.

‘Shell-shocked, huh?’ Han says, with a little laugh. ‘Me too. Didn’t expect it to go that way with Shalan. Sorry about all that.’

‘What happened?’

‘Minor contractual disagreement,’ Han says. ‘He thought he owned the Falcon. I thought he didn’t. I paid him back the money he was owed, but I wasn’t going to pay the interest as well.’ Han shrugs. ‘Nasty guy, Shalan. You’re better off not doing business with him.’

There is a noise, something that Ben can’t place. It’s like a thrumming sound, interspersed with a strange thumping noise, repetitive and urgent. It doesn’t sound like any part of any functional engine that he’s ever heard.

‘What is that?’ he asks. ‘There’s a strange noise.’

Han smiles, all insouciant calm. ‘That’s one of the bumps I mentioned. I sold the coolant reactor a while back, before all the business with Shalan.’

Ben blinks.

‘Yeah,’ Han says, in agreement although Ben hasn’t said anything. ‘You’ve got the same look as my wife about that. Leia thinks the whole thing’s going to blow any day. But she doesn’t know the Falcon. This thing’s water-tight.’

The noise, that low thudding, thrumming sound, seems to rather belie this opinion.

‘I’ll sort it out,’ Han says. ‘I’ve rigged up a temporary solution, and when I get the cash together, I’ll fix it up.’

Ben doesn’t understand this, because _money_ has never been one of the problems in their lives, not as far as he knows. Leia is a princess, and a Senator, and surely they can afford repairs? He doesn’t know exactly what time this is, but Han looks young enough that it can’t be very much past where he’s just been, 15 ABY, something like that. He supposes though, there’s an easy enough way to find out.

‘How old is your kid?’ he asks Han, who gives him an easy, heart-breaking grin.

‘Twelve,’ he says. ‘Nearly, anyway. Birthday’s tomorrow.’

And shit, Ben thinks. He knows now why he’s here, why this memory would have particular salience, or this event would anyway because he’s sure that this _isn’t_ a memory, not in the usual way. His twelfth birthday, something he’s not thought about a decade and more, was the one in which Han didn’t turn up because he was apparently stranded somewhere with a broken engine and no cash. Ben had never quite believed that story, and neither had Leia, from what he remembered of the tense conversations that followed at home, the dark atmosphere that had seeped over both his parents’ interactions when they thought Ben wasn’t looking.

That had been the last birthday at home. Not so many months after, he moved to Temple with Luke. He’d forgotten all about it. At the time it had seemed important, but after he’d become Kylo Ren, those sorts of things weren’t a part of him anymore.

‘You got kids?’ Han asks, oblivious to the struggle that Ben is going through, and he shakes his head, the question too absurd, the situation too strange. He’s thinking fast.

‘Can I check the engine?’ he says. ‘I don’t like that noise at all.’

Is he supposed to fix this? He doesn’t even know if he can – if his father has unwisely sold off parts of the ship to rustle up cash, then it strikes him as quite unlikely that it’s fixable. Maybe with the Force, but without it, there’s just no way.

Han shrugs. ‘Sure. But it’ll get us there anyway. It’s nothing.’

This is not true, Ben thinks, because _you didn’t get there_. He has a sudden, unwelcome memory of that party. He hadn’t had a very good time.

There’s a sharp and horrible grinding noise. It sounds like something coming loose. Fuck it. He sets off at a run towards the engine room, although he supposes he shouldn’t actually know where everything is on this ship, shouldn’t display such advanced knowledge of it. Han follows, and when Ben rips open the panel, he’s horrified to find that his father has rigged something up that is – in his opinion – pretty much burned to a crisp.

‘Huh,’ Han says. ‘Guess it didn’t hold.’

The ship makes a juddering, horrendous noise and Ben stretches out his hand, trying to use the Force, instinctively, but there’s _nothing_ , nothing, nothing. Han moves him out of the way, examining the problem, a slightly worried, thoughtful expression crossing his features as he looks at Ben, and then back to the engine.

‘I think we should land,’ Ben tells him. ‘I’m not sure it’s going to hold.’

Han just nods.

‘Sorry about this, Oberon,’ he says, and he drains the last of his drink from its can. ‘This’d be a great time to show off those _not bad_ piloting skills.’

It all happens fast with his father. Ben had forgotten that. Trips with Han were always at lightning speed, full of colours, motion, noise and bustle until they were once again over in a flash. His father seemed to thrive on stress. Today is apparently no exception: he and Han are no sooner in agreement than they are strapped in and piloting, Han issuing instruction, and then – careening, that thudding noise growing louder and more alarming, they are through atmo and they’re descending, very very fast, so much so that Ben has the new experience of feeling a bit queasy, and – with a smash and the sound of metal grinding against stone and earth – they’ve landed somewhere that is most definitely not Coruscant.

‘Phewf,’ Han says, wiping his brow. ‘Lucky you were here; thanks for the hand.’

And Ben finds that he is – for all that he’s grieving for his father, for all that this is painful and confusing and complicated – intensely annoyed.

‘What the hell?’ he says. ‘What was that?’

Han shrugs. ‘Told you. I had to make a few changes.’

‘To get money,’ Ben summarises, calling on his previous training in holding one’s temper for the greater good, training that he hasn’t used often lately. ‘You sold the coolant reactor? And then your ship was impounded by someone, some criminal, and you had to get it back and fly it out, even though you knew it wasn’t safe.’

‘Bout the size of it.’

‘And now you’re going to miss your kid’s birthday.’

What does it matter to him? Han is dead. Ben Solo, and Luke and Leia are all dead too. This stupid thing is only an echo of a life. But the problem is, it’s the echo of _Ben’s_ life, and it’s very hard to get past that, now he’s in it.

‘Who are you to say?’ Han asks, sounding annoyed. ‘Don’t mean to be rude, but I met you about an hour ago and I don’t even know your name.’

‘I told you my name.’

‘Yeah, and it’s a name from a storybook I used to read to my kid,’ Han says. ‘It’s obviously not your _real_ name. I’m grateful for the piloting, and for the back-up, but maybe we should part ways.’ He looks out of the window to the planet beyond and there’s nothing much to see except scrub land and waste. ‘Wherever the hell we are.’

‘ _No_ ,’ Ben says, urgently. He doesn’t want to part ways with Han. That much he knows. ‘Don’t be stupid. I’ll help you fix the ship, then we can both get out of here. We’re in the middle of nowhere.’

Han sighs. 

‘And you are a Jedi,’ he says. ‘Or something, anyway. I saw you, the way you stretched out your hand there in the engine room. It was like a reflex. It’s exactly what Luke does.’

Ben supposes he could go through the performance of saying _who’s Luke_ and maintaining all of it, but in the end, he feels that it’s completely pointless. He wants to tell the truth, or as much of it as he can bear. He is so sick of a life built on pretending. He is sick to death of the whole miserable thing.

‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘I have been trained as a Jedi. But I can’t currently use the Force. That’s – the problem that I’m having.’

Han raises his eyebrows. ‘Why’s that, then?’

‘I did some things I shouldn’t have done,’ Ben tells his father. ‘It’s …made it harder to use the Force. I might be able to use it in the future, but I can’t now. It was reflexive in the engine room. Sometimes I forget that I can’t do it.’

‘And when you say _things you shouldn’t have done_ …’ Han gestures, opening his palms as if to suggest he is weighing something up. ‘You mean, things like getting involved with people like Shalan? Or you mean things like… Force things you shouldn’t have done? Just so I know what I’m dealing with here. Because I have to tell you Oberon, people who dress in all black and say they’ve done bad things with the Force… that might be a problem.’

 _Shit_. His father’s not stupid. Impulsive, roguish and complicated, certainly. Hot-headed, arrogant and risky too. But stupid? Never, ever. Ben had forgotten. He’d forgotten who his father was, he thinks, but the truth is, he’s a clever man, and he understands Ben’s world more than Ben thinks he does. He knows a lot about the Force, the mechanisms of it. He’s married to Leia, after all.

‘I don’t do those things anymore,’ he tells his father. ‘I wouldn’t do them. Even if I could use the Force, that’s not what I want to do.’

Han’s expression is guarded.

‘And I don’t actually like black that much,’ Ben adds, trying to put a smile into his voice. ‘it’s just what I happened to be wearing when I – left my old life. So you could say.’

‘Your old life,’ Han repeats. He’s looking at Ben very closely, as if he’s studying him, learning his features. There’s something there in his expression. A spark of something, some nascent, rising understanding.

‘You’re something to do with Luke,’ he says, and it’s not a question. ‘You know this ship. It’s quite a coincidence that you just happened to be there in that scrapyard.’

Is Ben something to do with Luke? He supposes that he is, or he was, once upon a time. He is very much something to do with Luke.

‘I do know Luke Skywalker,’ he says. ‘Although I haven’t – talked to him in a long time. I can’t say we parted on good terms.’

Han nods.

‘And do you know my wife?’

‘Yes,’ Ben says, truthfully. ‘But I don’t – it’s been more than six years since we had a – conversation.’

‘What’s your name?’ Han asks, and Ben takes a deep breath.

‘Ben Solo,’ he says.


	5. 17 ABY, and the Falcon's Down

Han stares at him, his expression curiously blank, like he can’t decide what to say next. Ben looks back, waiting, uncertain how this will fall.

‘Not a good joke,’ Han says eventually, and his tone is more unfriendly. ‘I don’t think I like you using my kid’s name like that.’

‘It’s my name as well,’ Ben tells him. ‘I – it’s complicated, but I’m from the future. I am Ben Solo.’

Han snorts derisively.

‘You expect me to go for that, kid? I’ve watched holo-soaps with better plotlines than this.’

Ben wills himself to smile. It’s costing him quite some effort.

‘I know,’ he tells his father. ‘I remember you watching them. When we all lived together on Coruscant. Before I moved to Temple.’

‘I’m really not finding this funny,’ Han says. ‘Still.’

‘Nor am I,’ Ben tells him, honestly. ‘But I’m not lying to you. It’s how I knew this ship. It’s how I know Luke, and Leia. I know how to pilot the Falcon because _you_ taught me how to pilot it, when I was seven. You – you took me to Edana.’

Han stares at him, like he’s taking in his face, trying to map it against that of his nearly twelve-year-old son, redrawing the lines of it, aging him, shaping his nose, the line of his eyes, his cheekbones, his lips. Ben can almost _see_ him doing it. Han is starting to imagining how it could be, how very easy it would be to say -

But then he shakes his head.

‘Ben would never misuse the Force,’ he says. ‘He’s too … he’s not like that.’

There’s a horrible pause.

‘I –‘ Ben says, and he’s dragging the words with him, from some very far-away place in him, something rusty and difficult and closed-off. ‘Well, I did. I did … terrible things.’

Han just keeps staring, but disbelief is etched on his features.

‘And you don’t get to my birthday party, by the way,’ he tells his father, and even though it’s ridiculous, he feels angry. ‘You end up crash-landed here for a couple of days and you miss it.’

‘My son’s eleven and at home on Coruscant,’ Han says, and his tone is very definite. ‘He isn’t going to do terrible things. He’s just a kid. I don’t know who you are, or what kind of game this is, but I think you should get out of my ship.’

He stands up, and he looks angry and tense, and Ben wonders, for a horrible moment, if his father is going to point a blaster at him and frog-march him off the ship. His own blaster, the one he took from Shalan, is in his pocket, but _no_ , he thinks. It isn’t going to go that way. It can’t. Whatever happens now, he won’t let it go that way.

So he stands up too, and he keeps his hands open, palms facing to Han.

‘You don’t have to believe me,’ he says. ‘I wouldn’t believe it either in your position. But I am telling the truth. You are my – father, and I am Ben Solo.’

He takes a breath, and he realises, strangely, that his throat feels tight.

‘And,’ he adds, ‘I’m not having the best day.’

Han’s arms are crossed and his posture is defensive and taut.

‘Not my problem,’ he tells Ben. ‘If you want your day to get better, stop telling lies about someone else’s kid.’

Ben looks at him, and he thinks he understands, all at once, the truth of something he hasn’t even seen before. For how long has Han suspected, he wonders. And Leia, and Luke, for that matter. At what point did they sense that darkness in him? 

‘You know it’s true,’ he says slowly. ‘Or you know it _could_ be true, anyway. That’s why you’re so angry. You think … you don’t think it’s impossible.’

Han shakes his head.

‘Get off my ship,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to fight you, but I will. You’re a Sith. Obviously that’s what you are. This is … lies.’

Ben holds his hands up, a gesture of peace, of reconciliation. ‘You’re right. I _was_ a Sith,’ he says. ‘Or as close to one as makes no difference, anyway. But I’m not now, and … your son doesn’t have to be.’ 

‘No,’ Han says. He raises his voice, and Ben realises that this is one of the first times he’s ever heard his father come even close to shouting. ‘Ben is not a Sith. You are not Ben. And now I seriously want you out of here.’

He raises his blaster and jerks his head towards the door of the Falcon.

‘So get out,’ he says.

Ben isn’t afraid. He’s not afraid of anything, not really. Jedi training has long since bled any fear he had away into dust. He’ll jump across a cliff, or throw himself into a fire, if it gets him where he needs to go. He knows that he could easily fight here. He’d probably win, although there’s some small emphasis on the _probably_. He’s better trained than his father, he’s stronger, and he’s more used to killing and maiming people at close range, which is a surprisingly difficult thing if they’re looking you in the eye. The odds are in his favour. But –

‘No,’ he says, calmly. ‘I’m not going to get out. Shoot me, if you want. But you should listen to what I have to say. I really am Ben Solo. Tomorrow was my twelfth birthday and you didn’t come to the party. Uncle Luke was there, and he bought me a ….’ He strains to remember. ‘A Jedi thing, because what the fuck else would he buy me. Some kind of puzzle. We went to the forest for a picnic, I think.’

He speaks slowly, trying to infuse his voice with control and calm, as if he were still able to manipulate with the Force.

‘I think I’m supposed to help you fix the Falcon. I’m not sure, but I think that’s why I’m here.’

Han says nothing.

‘I’d appreciate it if you’d let me try,’ Ben adds, voice very cool. ‘I can probably take this ship by force and do it that way, but I’d rather not go there. I’m actually quite good with ship repair. Almost as good as you are.’ 

Reflecting, he grins. ‘That is, if you don’t sell essential parts of your ship.’

Han’s lip ghosts a very faint smile.

‘The coolant reactor’s not absolutely essential,’ he says.

Ben raises his eyebrows.

‘It’s apparently quite essential.’

‘I – ‘ Han looks at him, thoughtful. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he says, ‘but we’re in the middle of nowhere and I need to get home, so you can help me to fix the ship. Then you get the hell out. And if you try _anything_ with that tacky blaster you stole from Shalan, I will retaliate. Just to be clear.’

‘OK,’ Ben says. He can live with that.

Together, they walk to the engine room. Han leads.

+

Two hours later, Ben’s beginning to realise that his father’s system of organising things is not, in fact, a system at all. He just does whatever, and it all falls into place – or it doesn’t. In this case, it mostly doesn’t.

They don’t talk a lot as they work, other than to comment on mechanical or electronic options they don’t appear to have. Han’s extremely defensive. It’s clear he doesn’t want Ben to say a word about anything other than ‘pass the solar-light’ or ‘what about redirecting from the centrifuge?’ so he doesn’t. They just work, steadily, quietly.

As the time moves on though, Han seems to relax slightly, perhaps accepting that Ben is – whilst possibly insane - also someone who really does know the Falcon’s engineering well and who isn’t dangerous as such.

It’s been a long time since he was with Han. Even before he became Kylo Ren, before he smashed down the Temple and left and disappeared into the darkness, the times when they were just _together_ were so few. Not since he was eleven, really, he thinks, because once he moved to train with Luke, it was all holidays and occasional weekends and distance and awkwardness and the Jedi-ish-ness that he was frantically trying, and failing, to cultivate back then and there was always something that was gone between them.

‘You know,’ Ben says, as Han swears under his breath as he lifts a tangle of wires, ‘when you taught me how to pilot the Falcon, you told me that this ship was indestructible.’

Han grits his teeth. ‘Wasn’t you that I told that to,’ he says, ‘but yeah, I did say that to Ben. And I was right. It’s indestructible _with help_.’

‘I suppose it does survive,’ Ben says. ‘Right to the end. To where I’m from.’

‘And where is that, exactly?’ Han says, although his tone expresses scepticism. ‘What year do you _think_ you’re from?’

Ben tells him.

‘Right,’ Han says. ‘Well. Hope it’s a nice year, kid. Pass the redactor, would you?’

Ben supposes from this that his father is coming round to the point of the view that he is a lunatic rather than Sith, which is better in some ways, although less honest in others. He passes his father the tool he needs.

‘It wasn’t that nice a year,’ he tells him. ‘Although the year before was worse.’

‘Mmh,’ Han says, in a tone that says he’s indulging it, but only to a point.

Ben lifts the side of the mechanism his father is trying to remove, helping him. It’s heavier than he thought it would be.

‘Harder to lift stuff without the Force,’ he says, truthfully, and Han smiles.

‘At least I believe that bit,’ he says. ‘Now you’ve just got to be a human being like the rest of us. No magic powers.’

‘Yeah.’ Ben holds it steady and Han checks something, flipping a switch back and forth, sighing as he does it. ‘But it’s not a magic power. It’s just the universe speaking through you.’

Han snorts. ‘That’s exactly what Luke says.’

‘Yeah, because he _trained me_ ,’ Ben points out. ‘So I know what he says.’

His father ignores this, steadily working, humming as he does. ‘What’s he up to in your time? Luke, I mean.’

‘He’s – ‘ _dead_ , Ben thinks, but doesn’t say. He can’t bear to say it, because if he does he’s going to have to say everything, and he just can’t. Not yet, not like this. ‘We haven’t talked in a while, not really.’

‘Yeah, okay,’ Han says. ‘On three?’

They put the mechanism back, gently. Han sighs.

‘That should do it,’ he says. ‘Thanks for the suggestion.’

‘I’ve been in quite a few crashes,’ Ben tells him, lightly. ‘It’s worked before.’

‘Not surprised you have,’ Han replies. ‘The way you run around like a maniac, telling people you’re from the future. It’s enough to make anyone crash their ship.’

They both inspect the work, and Ben’s fairly sure that his father is right, that this is going to hold. Without the Force, it’s harder to know, but he still feels _something_. He knows, in any case, that his father doesn’t die here. He can’t die here.

‘I’ve not told anyone else,’ he says. ‘You’re the first person I’ve told that I’m from the future.’

Han sighs. He gives Ben a look, something gentle but still slightly calculating.

‘You know what I think? I think you’ve had a bump to the head or something,’ he says. ‘I don’t know what you were doing in that scrapyard, or how you know Luke, but I don’t think you’re… insincere. Why don’t you come back with me to Coruscant? Luke’ll be able to help you. Maybe you’ll remember how to use the Force again.’

Ben shakes his head.

‘I don’t think that’ll help.’

‘At least you might remember who you are,’ Han suggests. ‘Since you’re not Ben Solo, and you’re sure as fuck not Oberon Lightfoot. Kid, you’re all over the place. You need help.’

This is true, Ben thinks. He really does fucking need help. He needed in in this year, and in the year after, and in every other year up until the point that he’s in now.

His father shrugs, and then, as if he feels compelled to speak more, adds, ‘And sorry for flying off the handle back there. It’s probably not your fault you’ve gone weird. I just don’t like people trashing my kid.’

‘I wasn’t trashing him,’ Ben says, honestly. ‘It’s just going to happen, if nothing changes. He’s going to … hurt people. I am.’

‘Don’t go there,’ Han says, warningly.

‘I hurt you,’ Ben tells him. ‘I hurt Luke, and Leia, and a lot of other people. And it’s because I’m not… enough of a Jedi. It’s not the only thing I am, Dad. You have to understand that.’

Han shakes his head.

‘Cut the shit,’ he says, but Ben knows he’s listening anyway, because he _does_ understand. On some level, he already does, and he has to –

‘I train as a Jedi,’ he says. ‘And I do try, but … I have to be the best, and I find that there’s another, easier way to be the best. There’s another option for me, and I take it. ’

‘I choose the wrong thing,’ he goes on. ‘But for a long item it feels like the right thing. It feels easier to me, like it’s my destiny. That’s in me and you know it is. And Luke’s solution, to pretend it’s not real until it’s all too late…that doesn’t work, Dad. It just doesn’t work.’

‘I’m not your dad for fuck’s sake,’ Han says, but he’s still listening.

‘You know it’s true,’ Ben tells him. ‘You can sense it in me already, can’t you? Just a shadow of it, but you can see it. So can Leia, and Luke. They know I’m not… as pure and chosen as everyone says, but you all keep lying to me.’

‘You are a good kid,’ Han says. ‘ _Ben_ is a good kid. This is…’ He shakes his head. ‘You’re ill. You’re imagining things, and you’ve got to snap out of it. You’re making yourself miserable.’

‘I shouldn’t spend all my time at that Temple,’ Ben says. ‘It… isn’t good for me, so many years of it. I get so lost, Dad. I get so fucking lost. And it’s too late now. It’s way too late.’

Han just looks at him.

‘It’s never too late,’ he says. ‘Whatever’s going on with you, it’s never too late. I believe that about everyone. If you say you used to be a Jedi, then you know that. Things can always change for people, if they want them to.’

‘I _know that_ ,’ Ben says. ‘But not everything can change, not for me. It can for you, though. You have to… help your kid. You have to tell him he doesn’t need to be the best Jedi in the world. He doesn’t have to be _chosen_.’

‘I’ve never told him that,’ Han says. ‘Of course he doesn’t have to be the best in the world.’

‘He thinks he does,’ Ben says. He remembers his younger self, his energy, his determination to be the best in the world. ‘He thinks he has to lead the world or something, and – fuck it – the dark side’s a way to lead the world. Don’t you get that? You tell someone they’re special, you make them really believe it, and they’re going to find a way to do it. Even if it’s the wrong way, if that’s all they can get and they’re pissed off enough, they’ll take it.’

‘He _is_ special,’ Han says flatly. ‘He’s very special. He’s our kid and we love him.’

‘I know that,’ Ben says again.

Han takes a breath. ‘Look,’ he says. ‘I really do think you’re sick, kid. You need to get to Luke and he’ll be able to help you. Jedi take care of each other, don’t they?’

‘No, I -’ Ben says, determined to try again, but his father cuts him off with a raise of his hand, and the gesture is so much like when he was younger and Han really was his dad that he thinks it might break his heart.

‘Enough already,’ Han says, sounding very much like Ben’s father, too much so. ‘We fixed the ship. We’re going to give it a test run, then we’re flying to Coruscant. We can be there in a few hours, all right? You need some rest. You’ve got to stop going on about this. It’s not real. Jedi stuff’s fucked with your head. That’s all this is.’

‘I killed you,’ Ben tells him, and his heart does break then. He can’t speak anymore. There’s nothing left to say now.

Han just looks at him, not understanding, his face full of nothing except compassion and anxiety.

‘I’m right here,’ he tells him. ‘I’m not dead. See? You’re messed up.’

The light around Ben is flickering and fading, and he knows that he’s moving on from this now, because everything on the Falcon is starting to look like white light, and his father’s face is fading out too, shadowed, dimmed. He tries to hold on, because he wants to keep looking at Han. He wants to stay with him, not to ever leave, but he’s going to be pulled further and further away from this time when everything was simpler, and possible, and there was still a chance –

‘Dad?’ he says, trying to reach to him, holding on. He can still make out the vague silhouette of Han’s face, and he tries to touch him, to hold on.

‘It’s all right,’ he hears Han saying. ‘I think you were a projection or a holo, kid. No wonder you were confused. You’re fading out -’

His father’s voice is gentle, and Ben could listen to it forever. There’s not enough time. It’s just not enough.

‘I’ll get to your party, don’t worry,’ Han’s saying. ‘Everything’s going to be okay. Try not get so panicked.’

And Ben is trying, but he feels intensely panicked, because he’s being thrown out of space and time, and he just _can’t_ hold on, can’t, can’t. The room swirls out, and he lands, heavily, face-down on something that’s hard and cold, like marble or stone, smooth, freezing. It’s so _cold_ here, he thinks, absently. Really cold.

Where is this? He’s been here a thousand times; a million. There’s the noise of a fountain in the distance and someone’s laughing, and he’s on a terrace of some kind. There’s snow in the air, and he –

He stretches out his hand. There’s a sudden gust of fresh white snow, pulled towards him. Way too much. It coats his hand, thick and powdery.

He can use the Force, he realises. This is Luke’s Temple, and he can use the Force.


	6. Snow at the Temple in 22 ABY

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your lovely comments. It keeps me going when I write this story to know that you are out there and reading. Of course, more is to come - more with Han, Leia, and Luke as well as more Ben to Ben. Obviously as time moves forward, things are going to get more fucked-up, but at least for now things are sort of salvageable. 
> 
> I hope you continue to enjoy and have lovely days/evenings, wherever you are in the world! xxx

His first sensation is one of joy. He can feel the Force again. Around him, he can sense other people, their energies shifting, their thoughts dimly flickering in his consciousness. There are bodies; there is motion, Light, and the ebbing flow of everything that is and ever will be connected.

His Uncle’s presence, bright and shining, is distant, so he must be at the other side of the Temple grounds, he thinks. He can sense Luke now, just like he always could if he tried. Wherever he was in the galaxy, Luke was there, a distant light, a threat, a thing that in his nightmares seemed to flicker even brighter, turning luminous, exposing the shadows, the darkness that it found there. He’d fled from him. Even as he had wanted him dead, he’d never lingered too long on sensing Luke, preferring to shut him out, preferring the sanctuary of darkness.

But there is no darkness here. He is, he realises as he looks around, grounding himself, standing on the terrace next to one of the training rooms, somewhere in the west. There is a door into what sounds like, what _is_ , a lesson of some kind.

It’s been so many years since he was here, but everything is hauntingly familiar. The snow, the sound of the waterfall, the coolness of stone flags under his feet. If he turns into the vast stone walkway that runs north, he’ll find himself, eventually, in the centre of the Temple. He knows everything here. He knows it better than his home in Coruscant, better than any ship he’s ever led as Kylo Ren. This was his home.

The Temple’s grounds are expansive, running deep into the mountains as well as downwards towards the icy lake, the place where – in another life – Ben had often sat on the shoreline, watching the water. All of it is probably just as it ever was, before he destroyed it.

This is, or was, a sacred place and it hums with the Force, everywhere, bleeding through everything. It feels like Luke. Everything here is Luke. This is his design, his school, his mission. Being here again is like breathing fresh air, he thinks. It’s being with Luke, surrounded by the Light. It’s not only that he can use the Force. He is _safe_. In some very profound way that he feels like a burden being lifted, he is safe here.

He can sense the other people in the training room beyond. They must be the students, he supposes. Perhaps even himself, since he – the former Ben Solo - must be somewhere in the building too, because there was never any Temple without Ben. He was one of the first students, and he was one of the last too. The very last.

As he eases into the sensation of the Force, he feels a sensation of loss and of limitation. This isn’t as it used to be, he thinks. It’s something softer and less delineated, less easy to access. This Force isn’t _his_ , not quite as he inhabits it. It’s vaguer, more drifting and uncertain. It feels hesitant and nothing in his life has ever been hesitant.

He stretches his finger, trying to lift a nearby pebble. It does lift, but not as he expected. It judders, almost tumbling, before he holds it steady. It takes him effort, as if he were still a student himself, but even when he was 12, he had more control than this. With a wave of his hand, he directs his energy to a distant tree, an evergreen of some kind. A few of the needles fall to the ground, but it’s nothing compared to what Kylo Ren could have done to it. Just a little tremble in the universe, not a rupture.

Suddenly, soft footsteps. He spins around. From the door to the training room, out steps a young girl. She is perhaps 14 years old, certainly not more than that, and Ben recognises her. She is one of the younger students, one of the ones Luke found after he’d already moved to live here. No one special. At some point, one of his knights killed her, he thinks, didn’t they? He didn’t do it himself. He’s sure of that but he can’t say which knight it was who killed her or where or how. He only knows that she is dead.

‘Hello,’ she says, and her voice is young and shy and rather tremulous. ‘I’m – I’m sorry to disturb you, but I think maybe I… we’re practising sharing the Force and I think I might have – lost some of mine.’

‘Lost?’ Ben repeats, not quite understanding this. ‘I don’t think you can lose the Force. Not like that.’

‘No, but I –‘ she twitches slightly. ‘I was supposed to give some to my partner and he would give me some of his, and - my control’s not the best, so I thought maybe – and I thought I sensed, but maybe I didn’t -’

Ben remembers her name now. Saroona. He can sense her hesitation and anxiety; can read her with only the smallest of effort. She doesn’t believe that she belongs here. She doesn’t believe that the other students like her. She doesn’t believe she can ever become a Jedi.

So many of Luke’s students were nervous little things. They didn’t come from lives like his, lives wrapped within a world in which the Force was taken for granted. They came from places that had no use for their power and no name for it.

‘Who was your partner?’ he asks, although he knows what the answer will be.

‘Ben Solo,’ she says, sure enough. ‘But he – I’m not sure he really did it – I mean, for him everything’s easy, so maybe he didn’t do the exercise because he’s already done it so many times?‘

By which he supposes, his former self hasn’t bothered to transfer any of his own power to Saroona and the exchange has, as such, bounced to the second Ben Solo it has found. He can’t even remember this lesson. There were so many trainings over the years, so many incidental trivial classes.

She’s just a kid, Ben thinks, looking at her. He feels a sudden sorrow, intense, white-hot grief. Just a stupid young kid.

‘I’m not sure he’s done it that many times,’ he tells her, and he tries to put a smile into his voice. ‘Actually I have it on good authority he’s not that great at power sharing.’

‘Oh, that can’t be right,’ Saroona says, shaking her head nervously. ‘He’s the best at everything. He’s Master Luke’s _descendent.’_

She says the word almost reverently.

‘He’s not Luke’s son, you know,’ Ben tells her, taking the irritability he feels out of his tone, or trying to at least. ‘And yes, I think you did transfer some of your power to me by…mistake.’

There’s another voice inside, and it’s his own.

‘Saroona?’ Ben Solo is shouting, and his tone is not particularly friendly, Ben thinks, but it’s not actively hostile either. ‘Can you come inside now? We’re all waiting for you.’

‘Oh,’ she says, nervously. ‘I –‘

There’s a thud. The door to the terrace is swinging backwards and forwards, apparently manipulated by the Force, and Ben supposes his younger self doing it, summoning her within.

‘I’d better go,’ Saroona says, and her tone is tense, like she’s expecting something bad to happen. ‘I’ll – maybe we can see each other after class? I –‘

She scurries back inside, leaving Ben alone, with what he supposes is her power, or some part of her understanding of and possibilities within the Force anyway. She needs it back, he thinks. The idea of this exercise – which he has done, with Luke, a long, long time ago – is not to _keep_ the other person’s power. It’s to understand what using the Force feels like for someone else, to know how to share it. It’s about balance of need and give, really, and learning where the bounds are.

It was all easy stuff for him. He started here further ahead than other children, and he ended up further ahead, much _too_ far ahead in some ways. Probably it was inevitable, but he wonders sometimes anyway. About telling people a kid is the descendent of the Master and he’s been Chosen to Lead and all that.

It’s no one’s fault but his own that became Kylo Ren, but who knows. Maybe a bit less chosen-ness once in a while might have done him a favour.

Quietly, he stands by the door, which Saroona hasn’t fully closed. He listens to the instructor inside, who seems to be wrapping up the lesson because he’s setting up a meditation. Ben recognises his voice as one of the older tutors, Khalma il-Artha. He’d been a kindly if rather gnomic sort of man, and one day in the future, Ben will find him on a distant planet, masked and full of rage, and he will slit his throat with a saber cut that burns his skin.

‘Close your eyes,’ il-Artha is saying. ‘Dear students, we reflect now on the virtues of generosity. Of kindness to others. And above all, of our connections to each other. We understand that there is no _one_ Jedi. There is only all of us, bound by the same Force, in whom the same power flows.’

Ben closes his own eyes, although he doesn’t know why he does. Perhaps he misses it. Perhaps he’s in the mood for a lesson about connection after all.

‘Reach out now to your fellows,’ il-Artha tells them. ‘Feel their energies, their strengths, their fears, and their knowledge. Feel what it is to be them, and they will feel what it is to be you.’

Ben does try, and he can sense… himself, he realises with a slight shock. There is a vast wellspring of light in the centre of the room, streaked through with a faint, pulsating thread of darkness. Nothing so that you’d be _scared_ , not quite that. Maybe you have to know what darkness is to be able to find it; maybe it’s something he finds easier because of who he has been. That he doesn’t know, but he knows now that it’s there – a marble vein, that hard, hidden seam of black, buried deep in so much light.

He senses his own emotions, and he’s - afraid, he thinks, in some way. There’s a nervousness there, an edge of some creeping doubt in his psyche, although Ben can’t quite place it. It could just be teenager-ness, he supposes.

And then, there’s a flash – this time something different, a flecked golden light, a searching presence that seems to find him, examining, questioning, not understanding. He jolts towards it, but he doesn’t know who or what it is. He can only respond to it with a gesture of openness and honesty. _Hi_ , he thinks. _Ben Solo. Another Ben Solo. Complicated. Not a threat._

There’s no response as such. Just a bristling feeling, like he’s being scrutinised.

‘Bring your attention back to yourself,’ il-Artha says inside. ‘Gently, with focus on your strength, your own access to the Force. Be kind to yourself, knowing that what is easy for you may not be easy for another and that what is hard for you may be easy for another. Only together, unified and bound by our shared world, can all things ever be easy for any Jedi.’

Right, Ben thinks. He opens his eyes, although he hasn’t been instructed to. He’s not sure he really agrees with the sentiment. For him, it’s mostly about being alone. That’s what it’s always been about, really. Aloneness.

‘We return to materiality,’ il-Artha says rather pompously. ‘We open our eyes, and we conclude for today. You are dismissed, and I – I wish to take the terrace air alone, to reflect. Farewell.’

There’s a rustling sound, footsteps, little Jedi thumping through the exits, sheathing sabers, the swish of cloaks and the hum of chatter. He waits, because he understands now.

And then, there in front of Ben is his former teacher stepping out of the door, wizened and elderly and exactly as he remembers him in life. Il-Artha gives him a long, searching look. And then, his cheeks creasing to a grin, he smiles.

‘Another Ben Solo indeed,’ il-Artha says. ‘Or the same one, I suppose.’

He doesn’t seem particularly surprised by this. He bows, in rigid Jedi-form. Ben blinks. He inclines his head slightly, not sure if bowing is appropriate in the circumstances.

‘Hello,’ he says. ‘You sensed me.’

‘A long journey to be here,’ il-Artha says, looking at him. ‘Many years, I think.’

‘You know who I am, then?’

‘You are the future of Ben Solo, I think.’ He smiles, just slightly. ‘One version of it, at least. Perhaps not the version of _this_ Ben Solo.’

‘I kind of hope not,’ Ben tells him. 

‘Yes, you are atoning.’ Il-Artha shakes his head. ‘The Force has guided us to this meeting. I didn’t understand why I should have partnered your other self with Saroona. An imbalanced pairing. I wrestled with it, but now I see that she was to lend you her strength, so that I could find you.’

Ben says nothing to that.

‘Your uncle will not find you here,’ il-Artha tells him. ‘He will find you later but not here, not if you do not desire it. You are concerned about that, concerned by the prospect of your meeting.’

Was Ben concerned about it? He supposes in a way he was. Luke is complicated. Being with him, surrounded by his spirt and his power, and his purpose again isn’t easy. The relationship is just complicated in a way that even with his father it never really was –

‘I will not tell you your purpose,’ the older man says, which is exactly what you’d expect from all of this mystical crap, because it’s always like this and it was always like this with Jedi. ‘But I will tell you that tomorrow, Kylo Ren is going to be born.’

It’s jarring, hearing his new name here. He doesn’t like it _at all_. He’d prefer Kylo Ren wasn’t a name in this place, wasn’t a thing that existed here, in the heart of safety and compassion.

Ben shakes his head. ‘That’s too early. I didn’t – that doesn’t happen now. How old am I now?’

‘You are seventeen,’ his former teacher tells him, ‘and you are wrong to consider that birth is only physical. Birth begins as an idea, the moment that it is transformed into a possibility within a person’s mind.’

‘I didn’t think about anything like that when I was seventeen,’ Ben tells him.

‘You will see,’ il-Artha says. ‘But for now, you are to rest here. You are weary and you must eat and you must sleep. I am to guide you to a place of rest.’

It is true, Ben supposes. He is tired. He’s been in these memories a long time, and he’s hungry and slightly numb with the effort of seeing his dead uncle, mother and father, not to mention teacher and former classmates, on the _same day_. It’s been a lot to process.

As il-Artha walks, he follows.

He kills this man. He is going to, and he already has. As he looks at il-Artha, the thought seems almost too horrible to bear. _Why_ , he thinks? What was possessing him at that time, when he held his saber blade to his throat and pressed so that it cut?

He had wanted to be free, but freedom was nothing at all like that, not in the end.

Does il-Artha _know_ that he’s walking with his killer, taking him to a guest room in the sacred temple that Ben will one day raze to rubble and ash? Can he sense that too?

If he can, he says nothing. He only walks with Ben, down the long corridor into the heart of the place. The walls are stone and everything is cold and calm and it ripples with the Force, although –

‘I should return it to her,’ Ben says. ‘The power Saroona transmitted. It’s not mine.’

He’s loath to give it up but he’s fairly sure that’s the right thing to do. But his former teacher just smiles, as if this is a well-intentioned but ignorant comment.

‘There is no _mine_ ,’ he says. ‘Nor _yours_. There’s only the Force. You will return it to her when the time is apparent.’

‘Okay,’ Ben says, although he has doubts about this.

‘Your trust is greatly weakened,’ il-Artha tells him. ‘You lack insight into the true nature of the Force. I speak to you not as the student you were but as an equal now. You have ceased to believe that it will always guide you where you need to go. You believe that you can guide yourself there, but you cannot.’

‘I’m trying,’ Ben tells him.

‘As am I.’

They walk a little further, approaching the door to what must be a guest room. Ben has never been here. He has had no need of it – he has never been a _guest_. This was his home.

‘You think it is only a mechanism,’ il-Artha says. ‘A tool, a weapon, a shield, something to lose or to gain, or a feeling that guarantees a result, a direction of action. You do not understand that is also the choices we must make in uncertainty. You no longer trust in that.’

‘Well,’ Ben says, because there’s only so much bullshit a person can take. ‘I’m not sure I can really trust my choices are automatically right, no.’

‘No,’ il-Artha says, and he sounds patient. ‘But you must make them anyway as best you can. You must _choose_ to believe that you are acting with the Force. There is no knowing.’

‘Yes,’ Ben says, just like he always did at Temple when someone spouted something that didn’t seem particularly helpful, which was not zero percent of the time, he has to say. ‘Thank you.’

Il-Artha nods his head, apparently in farewell.

‘You have everything you need,’ he tells Ben. ‘You are not only the monster you think you are. And,’ his face crinkles into a final smile, ‘your uncle is very proud of you. When you meet him again, he will welcome you.’

With which, he walks away, leaving Ben to push open the door to the room and find – not to his great surprise – an austere place with a tiny window, a bed and a desk, on which some food has been lain out, apparently in welcome. It looks much like the room he used to sleep in here as a student: claustrophobic and joyless, but it’s serviceable enough. Given that there is nothing else to do, he eats, and he is – he realises – absolutely starving.

It’s too early to sleep – just edging towards dusk. He wonders what he ought to do. If his younger self is going to somehow to create the idea of Kylo Ren tomorrow, his purpose here is clear: to stop it, to talk to himself, or to someone else, and to find a way to prevent or derail it. The thing is, he has no idea what exactly he did tomorrow that had such monumental importance.

He thinks about it, unfurling his history, trying to remember this year. So many of the details are vague. Seventeen. He has been here five years. The years at Temple blend into each other, becoming an amorphous mass of training, Luke, meditation, sabers and forms, normal education, Jedi, holidays in Coruscant, the growing distance between him and the rest of reality.

Snoke started talking to him when he was twenty or so, not this early. He heard the voices in his head around that time too, the incessant whispers and promises that nipped at his dreams, so that he woke up and he could taste the blood of someone else’s murder on his lips. He heard Darth Vader talking, calling to him. But all of that was three years later, not now.

When he was seventeen he was… what, exactly? Bored, he thinks. Increasingly anxious about destiny and purpose and what he was supposed to do, but that was fairly standard stuff for Jedi in training. There was just nothing he can think of that was so important.

He wants to see Luke so badly it almost hurts, he thinks. Not Luke as an incorporeal spirit, but the real Luke, alive and whole, sardonic and difficult and the person who has protected Ben for his whole life. He wants to see him, and his father and his mother, and Rey, who is – in this time – a very young child, he supposes. Far away and too young to understand how much he’s going to love her one day. The thought makes him feel almost unbearably lonely.

The Force that Saroona has lent to him nudges his attention to the window and he follows it. Outside, in the grounds, he sees a group of students, walking together, their cloaks grey. He recognises them, even at this distance. They were, _are_ , his friends. That’s Rosaris and Anem, with Kedrin trailing them, like she always did.

They were the people he spent the most time with here, and although the point of the Temple wasn’t to be social but to receive an education that was bound up with training to become a Jedi, of course it _was_ also social, because they were just kids who were stuck together in a Temple and they had to talk to each other. They had normal lessons. They did things together.

He looks at them and he knows that they’re long-dead too. Anem, he had killed here. He had Force-choked him to death. In fact, he was the first person that Ben had ever choked.

Impulsive, perhaps guided by the Force that he, according to his former teacher, no longer knows how to understand, he goes out to them, moving quickly down the stairs and out to the grounds, thinking of what it is that he might want to say, or what he even could say. A half-plan forms, but he suspects that mostly he just wants to see them because they’re alive, and he’s alive too.

He passes by students, but they let him be without comment. People often came to the Temple: Jedi, parents, friends of Luke, friends of Leia, dignitaries and scholars. If Ben is dressed a little more darkly than average, if his presence is a little less benign, they don’t seem to notice. Carefully, he senses Luke. Saroona’s power isn’t enough for him to feel the way he could if he were himself, but at least he can always find his uncle, the heart of this place. He is distant. Ben thinks that he might be in his own quarters, in the eastern tower.

There’s a certain irony, he supposes. He used to avoid Luke when he was Kylo Ren too, albeit for completely different reasons. And here he is again, tiptoeing around the edges of his uncle’s power because he’s afraid of him.

Outside, the grounds are cold. It must be winter, or perhaps early spring, because there are wisps of falling snow and the path is covered by a thin sheen of ice. He walks it quietly, knowing the way that his friends must be going, because they so often made this journey together. He hated it here by the end, but now it seems almost nice. It is peaceful. There are no ships, no mechanisms, no whirring engine or angry blaster fire, no mechanical beeps and calls and soldiers. There is just the mountain and the wind, the birds and the water and there is a peace in that that he can still find.

Sure enough, as he approaches the edge of the lake, they are there, in the same little stretch of pebbled waterside that they always used – to practise, to talk, and in summer, to dive into the lake to swim. Rosaris is apparently in combat, her saber raised to her friend who is parrying, game but not anxious to win.

Ben watches the way she fights with Anem. It’s intense but friendly, and it’s been a long time since he’d thought of the possibility of a saber fight being _friendly_. They aren’t particularly skilled, but they’re seventeen and their power wasn’t ever a match for his, or for Luke’s. He always knew that. As he nears though, he notices that Anem’s about to win, because she hasn’t -

‘Watch out on your left,’ he calls to Rosaris as he approaches them, because she’s about to swing and miss -

She spins, reacting to his voice, turning towards him, and lightning-fast, her saber is sheathed, and so is Anem’s and they are both looking at Ben, eyes wide.

Her voice is strident. ‘Who are you?’

Ben smiles, in what he hopes is a reassuring way. He has planned some kind of story this time, something more compelling, he hopes, than just saying his name and being accused of being a madman.

‘I’m a friend of Leia Organa’s and I’m looking for Ben Solo. I heard he might be with you.’

‘Oh.’ Rosaris softens, just slightly, her posture relaxing. ‘Well, he’s not here, as you can see. I’m not sure where he is.’

‘Training,’ Anem suggests.

Kedrin nods, her black hair blowing behind her, and Ben has an awkward memory of how pretty she was and is. Irrespective of sacred duty to not form relationships, he'd not exactly not considered it back when he was here and it would always have been with her. ‘Definitely,' she says. 'He told me he was supposed to work with Master Luke this afternoon.’

 _Shit_ , Ben thinks. That’s all he needs: to try to find his former self when as he is in some kind of cosy tete-a-tete with Luke, both of them with their lightsabers shining purest white and everything about them glowing clean and brilliant. There’s no way he can see that going well.

‘Ah,’ he says. ‘Well I won’t disturb that. I’ll look for him later.’

‘He’s not normally done before sleep,’ Kedrin volunteers. ‘Sometimes he doesn’t come back for hours although he doesn’t say why.’

‘They work on really advanced things,’ Rosaris says. ‘Things that we can’t do yet. I'm sure it takes a lot of time to learn them.’

‘Actually, he probably just eats with Luke and they play Holo chess or something,’ Ben says. He’s fairly sure his former self won’t thank him for that one, but it is, after all, the actual truth.

‘He’s so lucky,’ Anem says, but it’s not resentful. ‘Getting to work with Master Luke like that.’

‘It’s his destiny to serve the Light,’ Rosaris says as if this were a fact beyond any doubt, and Ben has a sudden and distinct flash of Kylo Ren because the overriding thing he thinks is just _fuck it, let it burn_.

‘It’s yours too,’ he says. ‘It’s the destiny of anyone who becomes a Jedi.’ 

‘But Master Luke doesn’t work with anyone else like that,’ Anem says. ‘Ben’s special. He’s amazing. Have you ever seen the way he can throw a lightsaber and it always lands _exactly_ on the mark? Even when closes his eyes?’

‘That’s not hard,’ Ben says. ‘It’s just practice. It’s a trick he… learned when he was young. I know him a bit.’

‘He’s the only one who can do it,’ Rosaris says. ‘I tried once, in training, but I always missed the target.’

‘You just have to look at the place you want to throw it to,’ Ben tells them. ‘Before you close your eyes. You learn it, focus on it, and you think about it as you throw the saber. You don’t focus on the saber, only the place it’s going.’

‘Are you a trainer too?’ Anem asks, slightly surprised. ‘Can you use the Force?’

Ben nods.

‘Show us,’ Rosaris says. ‘I mean, please, Master…’

‘Organa,’ Ben tells her, lying smoothly, as he has planned. ‘I’m relative of Leia’s father Bail.’

‘Master Organa,’ Rosaris says, bowing slightly.

‘I don’t have my saber with me,’ Ben says, not adding that his saber is, depending on how you look at it, either not yet in existence, somewhere with Luke, or thrown into the ocean. ‘But you can try it yourself. You don’t need to watch me to understand what you have to do. Just -’ he looks around. It’s getting dark, and they’ll have to move inside soon, he realises. There’s no curfew as such, but this was an obedient kind of place and students naturally came in during the hours of darkness. Still, there’s a little light left. ‘Just focus on that flower,’ he suggests, pointing towards a winter bloom near to them, a delicate yellow bud. ‘Think about it, and throw your saber. Forget you’re throwing it.’

Rosaris does activate her saber and close her eyes then, following this directive. Ben moves slightly out of the way, just in case. He’s all too familiar with accidents in training, having seen a great many of them.

He tries to sense her emotions, and he feels something of her intention and her doubt. _I’ll never be as good as Ben Solo_ , she’s thinking. _I’m not that good. I got this wrong before. I’ll probably get it wrong again. I -_

‘You don’t need to doubt yourself,’ he tells her. ‘I can do it. Luke can. Ben can. Anyone can do it, if they have the Force. You only think you can’t because you haven’t tried in the right way yet.’

She nods, and there is a slight hardening of her resolve, he thinks, that flicker of strength. She’ll need a lot more than that to stay alive, he knows. She does stay alive a bit longer than the other two, but not long enough. None of them stayed alive long enough.

‘Just let go. Don’t throw,’ he tells her. ‘Focus on where you want it to. You’ll feel when it’s right.’

He senses the gathering of her thoughts. He tries, although he’s sure this isn’t the standard method of teaching, to help her, directing his own intention towards the place the saber should land. It’s easy enough. These things always came easy to him.

There’s a frisson of her energy, and she drops her hand, as if the saber might fall to the ground, but of course it doesn’t. It tumbles, and then it flies, exactly as a lightsaber does and should and always will, to land exactly in the centre of the flower, stabbing it with its flickering, soft white light.

‘Open your eyes,’ Ben tells her and she does. She stares at the flower; at her saber.

‘I just let go,’ she says, and her tone is full of wonder. She calls it back to her, and it flies neat into her hand. Next to her, Anem whistles.

‘Well done,’ he says.

She turns to Ben and her face is wreathed in a smile. ‘I could do it,’ she tells him. ‘I got it.’

He smiles back, although it’s a half-smile. ‘Anyone can do it if they practise.’

‘When will you start giving lessons?’ Rosaris asks. ‘We haven’t seen you before.’

‘I won’t give lessons. I’m just visiting.’

‘Why don’t you have a saber?’ Anem asks. ‘You should always carry one.’

Good fucking question, Ben thinks. Because I murdered people. Because I’m not really here. Take your pick of the reasons why.

‘It’s not my destiny right now,’ he settles for, hoping this suitably mysterious phrase will be well-received. And then, because he doesn’t think he can bear adopting this faux-solemnity, he smiles. ‘And you can use the Force without a saber, you know.’

He raises his hand, and although it takes effort, he does manage to achieve what he was going for: fallen snow rises up from the ground, gathering, forming, swirling, dancing into a storm around them that whips and whirls, as if they are nothing but characters in a snow globe. Rosaris grins, catching some of it on her hand, letting it settle into a soft ball. Next to her, Anem and Kedrin seem impressed, although less so when she throws the little pad of snow at them. Kedrin laughs. She lifts her own hand, and the Force gathers around the falling snow, trying to catch it, direct it -

Ben amplifies the storm with his hand, and then – amused by himself, only half-remembering how one does this because he’s healed exactly one thing in the last seven years – the yellow flower that Rosaris has stabbed, he heals, its bud reforming, re-growing until it is whole.

A stupid party trick, Luke would have said. But hey, Luke’s not here. In spite of himself, or perhaps because of himself, Ben smiles.

Tomorrow, he thinks, he’ll find the solution. He is going to fix things here.

+


	7. Talking to Yourself

It takes him a long time to relax into sleep and even when he does, his dreams are disturbed and full of memories of the faces of people he has known and will know. He was in a labyrinth, at the centre of which was some nameless, dread thing, and each step he took seemed to bring him closer to it, although he didn’t know what it was, only that he had to get there, to the worst place that there was. He walked forward.

In his dreams, he can use the Force as if he were Kylo Ren so he does. He smashes the walls down to get to the centre of it, to find the answer, but before he can take the final step into the swirling darkness and the dust, he wakes.

He can hear noise – footsteps in the corridors, students or teachers going to meditate or prepare for their days, just as he had once done. He feels tired, wrung-out with sleeplessness, but strangely resolute, like his mind has hardened into a single, clear point of purpose. He has to get to Ben Solo.

His purpose isn’t to drift in nostalgia for the things he’s lost, or pretend that he’s still the seventeen year old who could play around with his friends, making it snow for them. That person is dead. It was just a memory of being someone, he thinks. It was an impulse to, just for a little while, be that person again. And impulses like that are soothing, but to be soothed is dangerous in this context. He sees that there is a risk of just _forgetting._ In five years’ time, he is going to raze this place to the ground. He has to stop it.

He closes his eyes, searching, knowing what he has to do. He focuses on darkness. He tries to find that seam of it, the thing he sensed in the training room. It’s tiny, just a flicker, but he knows that it is there, buried deep, waiting to be found. It’s hard to find. The power he has is so limited, and it’s such a small thing.

His younger self is dreaming soft, heedless dreams. Ben connects with him, and thinks about the way it feels to choke someone to death. The headiness of it, the ease with which, by the end, it came to him. He thinks about how easy it is to crush someone with the weight of your blow, even when you lift your hand so soft it hardly makes a ripple in the air. He knows how to read the Sith language, and he imagines that too, the characters unfurling in his mind, whispering, talking, although it hurts him. Most of all, he thinks about the freedom that comes from a refusal to live his destiny. He thinks about how it feels to roam the galaxy and know that there is _no one_ who is strong enough to stop you from taking what you want, and there are no limits to the scope of your ambition. In his other self’s dreams, he is Kylo Ren, and he’s hungry for power, and for pleasure, and for the ending of everything he’s ever held sacred. He cuts someone’s throat with his saber.

His younger self whimpers in his sleep.

Ben imagines the darkness. He thinks about how easy it all is, to fall into a life of never looking back. There’s a memory he raises, some girl on a distant planet. She’d been standing in the way, and he’d swept her aside and her bones had cracked apart. He’d heard them break, the snap of her neck as she died. He thinks about himself on the throne. The absolute power he’s held, and all that it brought to him.

And he waits, patient, for the responding darkness that he knows will answer this call.

 _Let me teach you_ , he thinks. _Let me show you_.

Sure enough, he senses it. A young man’s curiosity, doubtful and only half-alert, but there nevertheless.

He knows that Ben Solo will come to him now. He has no idea in what other way he might have first come to the idea of Kylo Ren. Perhaps today was the first day he read about the Knights of Ren, and something about their chaotic power, their existence within realms he has never considered before, was appealing. Perhaps today is the first day he hurts someone with what might have been an intention, perhaps batting a student away who pushed him in the corridor, perhaps in training, lingering a second too long on the idea of the pain he could cause if he only wanted to.

Ben has no idea what the thing might have been, but it doesn’t matter. Ben Solo can just come to him. He will. Even at seventeen, of course he will.

The minutes move slow as he waits. Outside, there are the first fingers of dawn light, cracking the sky into gold and pink. It will be a beautiful morning here. He dresses. He feels calm enough about this and the way it’s going to go. There’s a risk that his younger self will recognise him, but he thinks on balance, the strangeness of the situation will jar that realisation. People see what they expect to see. Even him.

It doesn’t take long. There is a knock at the door, which he knows will be his own, because the only person in whom there is darkness here is himself, at least in that way so that it is written through him and a part of him. He is riven by it.

‘Come in,’ he says, and the door swings open, the Force propelling it, and through it walks Ben Solo. He’s as tall as him now, although so very much younger. His hair is longer and eyes are softer and more watchful. He’s not a child, but nor is he exactly an adult.

‘Who are you?’ he asks. Ben notices that he has brought a saber with him, although it’s holstered now. It’s the one he trained with here, the one that belonged to him for a time. He still has the blaster he stole, but he doesn’t expect that to be of the slightest use.

‘It doesn’t matter who I am,’ he tells his younger self. ‘It only matters that you’re here because you sensed me.’

The younger Ben’s face twitches in apparent confusion, or perhaps distaste. ‘I don’t know what I sensed. Something I didn’t like. It was –‘ he breaks off. ‘I don’t know. Different.’

That’s one word for it.

‘It was darkness,’ Ben tells him. ‘It was the other side of the Force. The possibility to do things that aren’t taught here.’

You’d expect the Bearer of Light and Chosen One to have more of a response than just, ‘Oh.’

But this is, indeed, all that the younger Ben says. His tone is reflective, almost academically curious. He pauses for a few seconds, thinking.

‘That’s not a part of this Temple,’ he says, eventually. ‘Uncle Luke would never invite you here. Who are you?’

‘You sensed it because it’s a part of you,’ Ben tells him, ignoring the question. ‘It’s something that you can do as well, if you want to.’

‘I don’t,’ his younger self says. ‘Why would I want that? I could sense you really hurting someone. You – I think you _choked_ them? I could feel someone trying to breathe, but they couldn’t.’

His lightsaber’s still sheathed, but his hand is resting on it now. He’s considering, Ben knows. He’s thinking about whether or not he should break all the codes of this place and raise a sword to a stranger in swift judgement and swift retribution.

‘Yes,’ Ben tells him. ‘I did, and many times. It was a convenient way of killing people. I preferred it because it was both a deterrent to others and it was …less messy than other methods.’

‘I think you should leave this place,’ the younger Ben says, but he sounds somehow torn. ‘I don’t know who you are or why you brought me here, why the Force did, but I don’t think you belong here at all.’

‘Probably not.’

‘How did you get here, anyway? ‘This is a guest room. Who invited you here?’

‘il-Artha invited me to stay. He invited me to this room.’

‘Our tutor? Why would he do that?’

‘He felt that you and I should have a conversation,’ Ben tells him. ‘I think he invited me for that purpose. I used the Force to bring you here so that we could do that.’

‘A conversation about how I’ve got the option of choking people?’ The younger Ben raises his eyebrows. ‘I mean, I know I could have done a bit more work yesterday in his lesson, but… this seems like an extreme response.’

‘It’s not about that.’

‘What _is_ it about? Look,’ Ben says, and he sounds peeved, and quite a lot like a younger version of Han Solo. ‘You woke me up with that shit. What the hell? Did you _burn_ someone’s throat with a saber too, or was that just my dream? Did you snap someone’s neck?’

‘I did.’

‘ _Why_?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ben answers, but it’s only a part of the truth. ‘I sometimes enjoyed the freedom of it. I liked being able to just do what I wanted.’

‘You wanted to snap someone’s neck? That’s fucked up. Were they your… enemy?’

‘In a manner of speaking. They got in the way of my plan for my destiny.’

‘But you didn’t like it,’ his younger self says, doubtfully. ‘I could sense that you didn’t like it. You seemed really confused and scared, like... I don’t know. Like it was hurting you.’

Ben stares at him.

‘I –‘ his younger self seems puzzled. ‘I didn’t get it. In my dream, you were _murdering_ someone _,_ I don’t know who, but you didn’t like it. You were just pretending to be sure because you were scared.’

This isn’t what he has expected.

‘I was sure about most things,’ he tells him, although he doesn’t think his voice is entirely even.

‘I don’t think so,’ Ben tells him, calmly. ‘I mean, I can usually… it’s quite easy for me to sense people’s feelings. Easier even than it is for Uncle, I think. You seemed really unhappy. I don’t think you were sure at all.’

Ben feels blindsided by this. He hasn’t expected his younger self to do this, to be able to sense the memories in this way. Why has he underestimated him?

‘You don’t always sense accurately,’ he tells him, although this is only on the thinnest edge of true. ‘You’re over-estimating the lightness in me, because it’s what you’re trained to see. It’s what you want to find.’

‘I didn’t want to find anything. I was just asleep. And I’m sure you were really… scared. You seemed so…’ the younger Ben closes his eyes for a moment, apparently in contemplation of the memory. ‘It’s like you know it’s a horrible thing that you’re doing. Yeah, you definitely know. You’re just doing it and not looking back, because you don’t think you can survive if you look back.’

‘I –‘

His younger self looks at him, guileless and kind. ‘Are you all right?’

Ben shakes his head. He really _isn’t_ all right. He feels like he’s breaking. Was he ever this … Light? This secure in it?

‘Don’t choke people,’ his younger self says. ‘If you want my advice anyway. I don’t think it’s good for you. Don’t snap their neck. Don’t do that stuff. Then you’ll be all right.’

Ben can’t help himself from smiling at that, at the insanity of the situation of the seventeen-year-old him telling him to not make the choices he has made, which is supposed to be what _he_ is doing.

‘Thanks for the advice,’ he tells himself. ‘You… shouldn’t do it either.’

‘Yeah, I don’t want to.’ He shrugs. ‘I don’t know why you’d think that I would. That was really fucking nasty.’

‘I guess it was.’

‘Who was that girl, anyway?’ his younger self asks. ‘The one whose neck you snapped when you flung her to the ground like that.’

‘I don’t know. No one. She was just a person who was in my way.’

‘Have you ever tried just asking someone to move?’ Ben asks him, and his tone’s almost amused. He’s fearless, his older self realises. He knows that he, the adult, is fearless, but he’s forgotten that he was fearless at seventeen too, and he was clever and talented and he was training to be a Jedi. ‘Like, you could just say, _get out of the way, please._ ’ He reflects. ‘Well, I guess maybe not the please.’

‘That would have taken more effort.’

‘Would it?’ Ben shrugs. ‘And anyway, she wasn’t a no-one. You remember her. You’ve dreamed about her before. I could sense that too. You feel guilty.’

‘You sense a lot of things.’

‘Yeah. But I’m not normally _that_ good,’ he says, easily. ‘It was very easy to read you. I don’t know why. Everything made sense to me. Why did you do all of that, if you felt so guilty about it?’

‘At some point, it’s too late to turn back. And I told you. It wasn’t only guilt that I felt. Some things, I enjoyed.’

But his younger self just shakes his head.

‘No offense,’ he says, by which Ben takes that something offensive is coming, ‘but I think you’re lying to yourself about that.’

And then he smiles, and he looks so, so young.

‘I still think you should probably go,’ he tells him. ‘I – no offense, but I don’t think Luke’ll be keen for you to be here. I don’t think it’d be fair on the other students, if you try to make them think about the things you showed me.’

‘Why not?

‘They’d be disturbed by it.’

‘And you weren’t?’

‘Were you even listening?’ Ben asks him, and he sounds exactly like a teenager. ‘I _was_ really disturbed. But if someone saw all that, and they couldn’t sense your feelings, they’d be very afraid of you.’

‘And you’re not.’

‘No, not really.’ His younger self shrugs. ‘At first I thought maybe it was just in the dream, but now I see you, I think… you’re just like Luke. He hides things too, about what he really thinks, and he gets sad about it too.’

‘I remember,’ Ben says, because when he hears it, he _does_ remember that vibe floating around Luke. There was that oddly bristling, intense closed-ness at times. It wasn’t that he lied. It was that there were always things he didn’t say.

‘You know him, then?’

‘Yeah. I knew him really well at one point in my life.’

His younger self nods, and then, without a care in the world he asks the question that Ben all at once understands is the point of this memory that he’s living in, the weight of it falling on him like a stone.

‘Maybe you know then. What exactly _was_ it between him and Darth Vader?’

‘I – ‘ he says, thrown. ‘Well, he killed him. Obviously.’

‘Yeah, sure.’ His younger self shakes his head. ‘That’s not what I mean. I get all that. But there’s something more. There’s always been this … _more_. I can feel it, but I don’t understand it. Did he hurt Luke in some other way? Not just with a saber or whatever.’

Ben had forgotten. It’s all been so long. This is the day then, that he puts two and two together about something that had always seemed strange. Before today there were two people. There was Anakin Skywalker, his grandfather who had died fighting the Sith, and whom Luke and Leia had never known because they’d been raised by other families to keep them safe. And there was also Darth Vader, the evil at the heart of the Empire.

After today, and for the rest of his life, there was only one person.

He finds out from a stupid fucking book, in the end. He’s reading something in history, and there’s a footnote about Anakin having ‘fallen’, and from there he sort of works out the answer to what’s always been odd. He asks Luke, who does tell him, but by then it’s too late, because he should have told him _before_. It makes him so angry. He doesn’t understand why no one told him, until Snoke whispers the answer: they didn't tell him because they thought the same thing would happen to him. 

‘Have you asked Luke?’ he asks his younger self, although he knows that he hasn’t, or at least, he hasn’t been _answered_.

‘Yeah. He was weird about it.’

Ben doesn’t doubt this.

‘Sorry to ask you,’ his younger self says. ‘I just … with the whole thing you’ve got going on. I wondered if maybe you knew more.’

Ben thinks. He could tell him. It’d be the work of minute, and probably it would be better from him than from some stupid nothing book. But on the other hand, he’s a stranger, and a murderous one at that who’s just thrown himself into his dreams to show him how to choke people. It _shouldn’t_ be from him, should it?

‘I don’t know all of the details,’ he says, which is sort of true although it’s a stretch because the details he doesn’t know are all irrelevant. ‘But you’re right that there’s something more. Luke will tell you about it when the Force tells him that it’s the right time.’

‘But –‘ his younger self starts, before he breaks off, unsure how to put this. ‘I think that – to me, it feels like the right time now. I can sense that there’s something I’m supposed to know, or to do. But I can’t get to it. I just can’t.’

He smiles slightly, awkward. ‘Not that I know more than Luke, of course. I’m still learning.’

‘Mm,’ his older self says.

‘Ben,’ he adds, and he makes his voice kind although he doesn’t feel particularly kind when he thinks about this. ‘Luke’s not a perfect person.’

He pauses.

‘Luke can be weak,’ he says. ‘There are things he can’t cope with. He doesn’t always know what to do. And sometimes, he makes really, really bad decisions. You should know that.’

‘He’s a hero,’ his younger self says, bristling slightly.

‘Sure. But that’s not the point,’ Ben tells him. ‘He’s also just a person. He talks a lot about living without fear, but actually, he’s afraid of a lot of things.’

‘Like what?’

‘You’ll have to ask him about that.’

His younger self sighs. ‘I try to ask him things, but he doesn’t answer. Nor does Leia or Dad, or anyone. It’s like a wall. You just want to know what’s behind it, but no one tells you.’

‘They’re trying to protect you.’

He realises only as he says it that is true. All these years he had thought they were just deceitful, or afraid of him and the way he would turn out, or not regarding him as an adult, or trying to control him, to turn him into their weapon for a battle that he didn’t necessarily want to be in. Probably all that was true, but so was the softer, kinder answer too: they just wanted to protect their kid from something horrible.

‘I wish they wouldn’t,’ his younger self says. ‘I don’t need it.’

 _Yes, you do_ , Ben thinks but doesn't express.

‘You have to talk to Luke again,’ he says. ‘Go to breakfast, then go to him and ask again.’ 

‘I have training.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he tells him. ‘You already know everything they’re going to teach you. And if you don’t, you can learn it later anyway. That’s what I’m supposed to tell you. Talk to Luke today.’

‘Who are you really?’ his younger self asks him. ‘I feel like I know you.’

‘It’s really not important.’

‘But what’s your name? Who are you?’ He stands up, as if he is agitated. ‘You put these horrible memories in my head, and you… you act like that’s something I wanted, when I didn’t. And you know the answer, but you won’t tell me either…’

A flash of anger crosses his face.

‘No one can just tell me _the truth_ and I’m sick of it.’

What it is to be seventeen, Ben thinks, almost wryly. All those emotions. 

‘They will,’ he says, keeping his voice steady. ‘But I’m not the right person to tell you. It has to be Luke. Or Leia, or Han, or someone you love. ’

‘And you won’t even tell me who you are.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

He takes a deep breath. He doesn’t need to look to know that his former self’s hand is now holding the hilt of his saber. He's ready. Ben would have been ready when he was seventeen. 

‘Because you were right,’ he says. ‘There is something _between_ Luke and Darth Vader. It’s not a particularly good thing, not from Luke’s perspective. It’s not something he can cope with. He can’t talk about it because he… I don’t think he knows how. He was always useless at that kind of thing. Who I am has nothing to do with that. It's to do with Luke.’

He thinks about it and the answer seems obvious, really. He didn't know it when he was seventeen, but some things - many of them - are so much easier to know as an adult. 

‘You have to help him,’ he says.

‘Help him? Luke, you mean?’

‘Yeah.’ Ben shrugs. ‘You have to … tell him that you need to know the answer, because you’re going to find out anyway, sooner or later, and you want to hear it from him first. Tell him that it bothers you and you can sense it, and it’s driving you crazy, and you think that everyone is lying to you. All the stuff you told me.’

‘He should know that.’

‘Yeah, but he doesn’t.’ He smiles. ‘He’s appalling at sensing what people are thinking. He’s more the … austere meditation and sulking type. You’ll know that when you’re older.’

‘Will I?’

‘I expect so.’

And then Ben grins at his younger self, and he’s surprised to see that he smiles back, a little hesitantly but nevertheless a smile.

‘Go and ask him,’ he tells him. ‘I’m sorry your uncle’s a bit fucked up about something. He's a human being. But it’ll be so much better that way, if you go and ask him and tell him what I told you.’

‘Well…’ his younger self pauses. ‘All right. If you think he’ll answer.’

‘I’m sure he will.’

‘Okay then.’ The younger Ben nods, thinking about it. ‘Thanks, I guess.’

And then he does smile in a way that makes him look very much like his father.

‘And don’t choke anyone, okay?’ he tells his older self. ‘Just thought it was worth saying that again. In case you were planning on it or whatever.’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘Good. I don’t know how you could bear feeling like that,’ Ben says, easily, already half out of the room. ‘I don’t think I could have done it. If I hadn't seen how miserable you were, I'd have called Luke here and never come alone, you know.’

And with that, so quickly, he’s gone, away down the stairs, presumably to breakfast, his feet light and soft on the stairs, leaving his former self alone.

He takes a deep breath.

How could he have forgotten being that age? Seeing himself, talking with him, was a jarring experience. He was so Light and sincere and he could understand what people felt, and he wasn't scarred and he hadn't murdered anyone and he didn't know anything about the things that Ben knows now. He was just a Jedi kid. Just Han's kid. And Leia's. 

Ben is aware that he feels angry, and mostly with Luke. All of this is a fucking disaster waiting to happen, he thinks. You take a kid like that and tell them they’re made of pure spun sunlight and then later announce to them that someone else who was made of that same fucking sunlight was actually corruptible, weak and would go on to do terrible things. And you announce that in such a way as to introduce the possibility that you think the kid might be _the same_ … and at the same time you tear down their sense of family and trust, and reshape their world.

And all because you're just _scared_. That's what this is. It's about protection, sure, but it's also - mostly - about fear. He knows that. He might be damaged beyond repair now, but he can still understand people's feelings just fine.

Really, Ben hardly has to decide what he’s going to do. If his younger self has followed his advice and gone to breakfast first, then he needs to talk to Luke _now_ , before he fades out and into the mist. He has to tell him to just… be honest. He has to trust that his nephew is going to be able to handle the truth, if he tells it in the right way. It should come from him, in kindness and respect and honesty.

He senses where Luke is, and finds him easily enough, that glowing, warm light that had protected and encircled Ben for all of his young life. He’s still in his own quarters, or near to them anyway. It’s not like Ben doesn’t know the way. He sets off apace, and as he walks, he summons all the psychological reserves of patience that he has. His younger self’s words ring in his ears. _I don’t know how you could bear feeling like that_.

Well, he couldn’t bear it, could he? In the end, when it came to it, he basically just couldn’t fucking bear it and the fact it took a seventeen year old to point that out to him seems pretty sad.

Has he done enough, he wonders? He hopes that his younger self is going to ask Luke in a way that compels him to answer. Would he have done, if a stranger had told him to do it? Possibly. He doesn't know. He was seventeen. He didn't have intense powers of diplomacy and social grace. Still, there was a chance. Something like one. 

He rushes into the main hall, where various students are gathered and gathering, but – _shit, shit_ – he feels that sense of fading out, like the room is coming unstuck, morphing into a new form. The walls are peeling away from him.

One of the students, a young girl, moves towards him.

‘Hi,’ she is saying. ‘Excuse me sir but you’re – you’re fading. Are you a holo, or –‘

‘No,’ he tells her. ‘I have to get to Luke Skywalker.’

His voice sounds garbled, even to him. Her response, the concern on her face, he can make out. _Fuck it_. He really has to get to Luke. He walks faster, but of course, you can’t walk in a place that you don’t exist, or a place that doesn’t itself exist. Everything’s disappearing, swirling, reforming. The sensation makes him dizzy, and he briefly closes his eyes.

When he opens them – fuck it – he’s still at Temple, except it’s the middle of the night and in the distance, he can hear the billowing, deafening sound of a hundred stones crumbling, being smashed hard to the ground by someone who using the Force. There are screams and shouts. Everything is echoing and falling, and there’s the taste of dust and ash in the air.


	8. Temple's End

He knows when this is, of course, and what it is. Somewhere close, he – his 23 year old self – is smashing everything apart. He is so angry. Blind rage and grief and shock and destructiveness. He remembers how it felt. Liberation, that rage. Darkness. The pleasure and the fear of it. He’d broken everything he could find.

Stupid how it had started. Luke over him, the saber in his hand. Had he really intended to kill him? Ben now knows that he couldn’t have done, not really. But then? He believed and didn’t believe. It was the excuse he needed. The reason to unleash. Whether it was true or not didn’t matter.

What had he done? He’d pushed back against Luke and he’d smashed things, stone by stone. He’d brought down room after room. Luke had given chase. They’d fought, he and Luke, students all around them, fleeing, trying to fly. Luke was trying to save them.

Once you jump, you have nothing left to fear. He’d jumped and tonight was the air where the ground used to be. It was exhilarating and terrifying and if he tries to remember it, he finds that he can’t really. It’s a sequence of snapshots. Luke’s face. The way the staircase came down all at once, ripped asunder. The collapse of the roof over them, the smell of the building debris and the dust that fell onto him. The little kid who –

He can’t think about that.

The way Luke’s face crumbled as he finally fell under the collapsing ceiling beam, and how Ben had run, not knowing if his uncle was still alive, not able to know, not thinking, blind. He’d just run and left it, a pile of rubble and brokenness, and his uncle unconscious or dead, and his whole life ended here, tonight.

He doesn’t run now. He’s still in the central hall, where he faded out and then back in. They’ll come here soon enough, he knows. This is one of the last places he came, and from what Ben remembers, it’s somewhere he left more or less in-tact. It’s the safest to be now, and there’s no question of his leaving. The distant crashing is less distant.

From another corridor, two students are rushing, still dressed for sleep, woken by the commotion. Their sabers aren’t even up. They’re looking around them, trying to find the source of the noise. He calculates. The nearest exit is still a way from here. It’s down the corridor, closer to where Ben Solo is currently tearing a hole in the universe of his life. He can’t send them that way, but he has to get them out.

‘What the hell?’ one of them is saying, and then he sees Ben and his face… flickers, confused, recognising and not recognising.

‘Solo?’ he says. ‘What’s going on? You look…’

Ben looks seven years older. He’s palpable the same person, but shadowed, aged. There’s no time for any of these explanations. It doesn’t even matter, really.

‘Get behind me,’ he tells the student, just in case. His voice is very calm, he finds, although he doesn’t _feel_ calm. He’s afraid of himself. The student does move behind him, but he’s looking around and around still.

‘What’s that noise?’ the other one asks, approaching.

‘It’s a fight. Someone’s attacking the Temple,’ he tells her. ‘Stay behind me. Don’t worry.’

‘But who?’ she says, and her tone is full of confusion. ‘Who would… I don’t understand.’

‘Were there other students in your room?’ he asks her and she nods.

‘Get them out,’ he tells her, changing his mind, thinking fast. The distant noises are closing in. ‘Go together. You have to wake up the students. This whole building is going to come down.’

‘Get everyone out through the exit down to the lake from the terrace,’ he tells them. ‘Wake them up and then take the corridor that bypasses here, the one past il-Artha’s teaching room. You know the way?’

She nods again, but the male student demurs.

‘We have to fight,’ he says. ‘We’re training to fight. We can’t just run away.’

An almighty crash. There’s Luke’s voice, raised. _Stop_ , he is shouting, and Ben remembers it. He can see Luke, holding him back with the Force. He’s just blocked that exit, anyway. He’s pulled the ceiling down above the door, deliberately encasing them all in what he planned to be a tomb.

There are more students now moving in the hall, and the man who will soon be Kylo Ren is coming and he’s furious and blood-raging and he’s got nothing left to lose, so he thinks. The floor is shaking.

‘Get out!’ Ben tells them, urgently. ‘You have to go. It’s not safe.’

‘We’re _staying_ ,’ the male student tells him, and he sounds so sincere and principled. He sounds like he would have been a great Jedi, except the problem is he’s never going to get the chance, not if he stays here. He activates his lightsaber, and Ben knows that sooner or later, this kid dies. Maybe not here, today. But in his reality, he’s long dead, and it’s -

There’s chatter. One of the girls is running towards the source of the noise, saber outstretched, and he _really_ isn’t keen on that idea.

He holds her back with the Force, and although Saroona’s power’s not much, it’s enough. He’s trained. He can use what he has, especially against a thirteen year old. She can’t get forward.

‘Do not go that way,’ he shouts. ‘Get up the stairs. Get to the terrace exit for fuck’s sake.’

Some follow his orders, but many – too many – don’t. A couple are running the right way, up and away into what he thinks might be safety. They move fast. He hopes they make it. Others are too brave, too ready to die, to fight, to be what they are being trained to be.

‘Ben!’ someone shouts, but he doesn’t know if it’s to him or to the other Ben, but then there’s a noise, and the _other one_ , the one who is now Kylo Ren or who will be soon, has come into the room, his hand outstretched, his saber raised.

His face is… animalistic, wild, unheeding. He looks deranged. His eyes are almost blank. With a wave of his hand, the stairs that lead up are crumbling, because he’s seen that there are students trying to get out that way and – fuck, fuck – this didn’t happen last time, because of course, Ben wasn’t here last time. They didn’t try to go that way. 

‘No one gets out,’ he shouts, and his voice is ragged and painful. He’s just 23. He’s so young.

With another wave of his hand, a window smashes out, glass splintering everywhere, cutting into the students who are left. One of them screams, and tries to buffer him with the Force or something, stretching out his hand but of course – Kylo Ren can just wave it away like it’s nothing. His face barely registers the pain it must have caused, just flinching for the briefest instant, before he resumes his attempts.

‘Get behind me,’ Ben shouts, urgent, to those who are left – which they do, perhaps because he is an adult, perhaps because he is also Ben Solo, he doesn’t know. He raises his own hand, and for the first time, his younger self looks at him.

He doesn’t know if he even understands what he is seeing. Probably not. He isn’t really here. He’s acting on some wild, forlorn instinct. Within him are the voices in his head, their hands, their weapons raised. There’s a cut on his face and his eyes are just –

Once upon a time he would have said, if you’d asked him, that this was a purposeful moment of his connection with his true destiny. Now he sees it, though, he just looks like someone’s gone over the edge and doesn’t care whether he lives or dies.

He uses the Force, not particularly kindly, in the way that Snoke taught him, trying to knock his younger self to the ground. He slams at his knee, forcing him to bend, and then slams him again so he doubles over in pain, and it’s definitely not the kind of move you learn in Jedi training but he’s –

He’s a good learner and he’s strong, and he can withstand it. Of course he fucking can. Ben himself withstood all of this and more with Snoke so he knows that he can bear it. He’s already pulling himself up from it, and he raises his own hand, furious, nostrils flared, white hot with anger.

Ben feels the impact before he can even react to it – he’s being flung, very fast, across to the far wall of the hall. One of the students screams. His former self has put way too much strength into this though, he thinks, even as he’s flying back. Kriffing stupid to do it that way, because now he’s got to recover, and even that second of recovery is enough to hurt, if Luke can get here, if only he can make it.

He lands heavy against the wall, but the impact’s not enough to knock him out, nothing like that. It just _hurts_ , but what’s pain if not temporary?

Still, his younger self is pursuing him, moving towards him, clearly intending to finish the job he’s just begun, but then there’s a white, electric burst of the Force, and Luke’s there too, coming out from the entrance Ben has just left. He’s covered in building dust, and he’s limping. He’s already had half a wall fall on him by this point, from what Ben remembers anyway, but his hand’s still outstretched, trying to stop his nephew.

Whatever he does, it obviously works, because Ben can see his younger self’s face up close, and there’s a sudden expression of pain on it – a physical, sharp pain. On instinctive, lightning fast, he turns around to face Luke, leaving Ben, who is, after all, only the lesser of his prey.

He stands up, weakly. He’s fine, he thinks. That was nothing. The only thing he wishes is that he had the Force, the _real_ Force, because honestly, now would be quite a good time to be able to do some of the things he was trained to do. Some of the students around are making futile attempts to fight, but most, he notices, are watching Luke, cowering to the sides. They’re trusting him to protect them.

The problem is, Luke’s limping. In Ben’s opinion, and indeed in his _actual knowledge_ of how this situation unfolded, he’s not got too long left. So he does what he thinks best, and he Force slams the back of his younger self’s knees again, knocking him down again. He swears as he falls.

Ben’s eyes meet Luke’s. For a single, frozen second, they just look at each other. But then, there’s a whir of lightsaber, a flash, and Ben’s jumping out of the way of the blade he spent so many long years training with, and Luke’s moving, fast too, towards him.

He’s keeping the younger Ben down on the ground, although it seems to be costing him some effort. Ben helps him. He pushes down with the Force, keeping him down too, lidding his energy, imprisoning him there. Some of the students around seem to be moving closer, stupidly, and he tries to keep them away with a wave of his free hand.

‘Don’t approach,’ he shouts.

‘Hi by the way,’ Luke says, eyebrow raised, surveying the scene, even as he’s straining with the effort of controlling the younger Ben. ‘You look a lot like my nephew.’

Ben shrugs. ‘Hi. Yeah, I am your nephew. Long story.’

Luke’s face is pained. He’s looking down at the other Ben Solo, the one he’s barely containing, whose teeth are bared and whose eyes are full of dead rage.

‘Tell me later, kid,’ he says.

Ben throws a Force punch at himself, not heavy, but trying to distract him from his frantic attempts to get up, to break out of the Force hold.

‘Did I train you?’ Luke says, watching this.

‘Yeah.’

‘What’s up with the Force?’

‘I borrowed someone else’s. I don’t have my own. Don’t have enough.’

‘Oh,’ Luke says. ‘Seems a bit of a waste of potential.’

Then, incredibly, he closes his eyes and Ben feels a swing of massive power being transferred to him. The energy of it is intense and terrifying, and light, like burning, like white heat, like a star.

‘Have mine,’ Luke says.

It feels … indescribable. Much more like being himself, but also like _being_ Luke. The way his power works is different to Ben’s. He has different senses. He’s experienced it before, but that was a long time ago and he was a child then. It’s very different now.

‘Thanks,’ he says but Luke just shrugs as if to say it’s nothing at all.

At their feet, the younger Ben appears to be regaining his energies. He’s clawing his way out of this, and he’s going to break it – even with the two of them holding him, there’s no way they can keep this up for long.

‘Stop this,’ Luke tells him. ‘What’s happened here? What the hell is this, Ben?’

He doesn’t answer that, though. He just stretches out his hand, his eyes closed, taut with fury and pain, and with a tremendous burst of energy, both Luke and Ben are knocked back, forced to release him. He’s up on his feet too fast, far too fast.

‘Fuck you,’ he says to Luke. ‘Fuck you. Murderer.’

‘I –‘ Luke says, but this obviously throws him off, because his face is torn and confused and that weakness is nothing but an advantage to the person who’s becoming Kylo Ren.

Ben acts on impulse. He reaches out his hand, with Luke’s power. He knows things Luke doesn’t know. He e tries to make his other self pass out, to render him unconscious so he’ll drop like a stone.

 _Sleep_ , he tells him, pushing into his thoughts. _You’re out of your mind._

But he’s not strong enough. He isn’t Luke. He’s only borrowing something from him. Ben just buffs it back like it’s nothing.

 _Get the fuck out of my head_ , he thinks, and it’s a shout in Ben’s own head. _Get out of my fucking head get out get out_

 _No_ , Ben thinks. _Stop this, you idiot. Can’t you see what you’re doing?_

But there’s another snarl and his other self pushes him out of his head, abrupt and forceful. Next to him, Luke shakes his head.

And then he sees one of the other students, someone young and tiny, charging, and he remembers this. He remembers exactly this little kid running at him, although it was somewhere else in the Temple as it happened to him. He ran fearless, wild, full of electric bravery. He couldn’t hardly hold his saber, but he just ran towards certain death like it was nothing.

And Ben knows what happens next to that kid, and he has to – he pushes the kid out of the way with the Force, knocking him to the side, sweeping him away, using only the tiniest extent of Luke’s power. He flies to the side like he’s a leaf.

It’s all the time that his other self needs, though, that moment. He gains the advantage, and he’s apparently trying to bring down the ceiling above them all – and although this is a mad, dangerous plan, there are splinters and fissures emerging. A column falls, crumbling, smashing, the noise deafening. The room isn’t stable. A student is crying, Ben hears. She’s sobbing little hysterical gasps. She thinks they’re going to die.

Next to him, though, Luke’s still there, hanging on, holding the place up with his hands. The last time, Ben had managed to knock him to the ground way before this point. He’d crushed the whole place, and he’d just _left_ his Uncle lying unconscious – possibly dead – on the floor. He didn’t care that much.

It’s unbelievable to him now. All these people…

His younger self is moving towards him and Luke, intent on murder. He is fearsome, but fear is nothing, not really. Ben moves, preparing to fight. He hasn’t got a saber and the other Ben has, so there’s no way he can win, but since when has that ever bothered a Jedi anyway?

He just gets on with it, and sure enough, his younger self attacks, so he ducks out of the way of his saber, and he’s glad that he’s got Luke’s power to intuit attack, because without it, he’d already be dead.

Luke’s trying to hold the ceiling up, which Ben supposes is taking quite some effort – if it collapses, they’re dead that way too.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ his younger self asks, and he slams the saber, hard, into the spot where a second ago, Ben was.

‘You,’ Ben says, simply. He doesn’t think he’s capable of hearing it or understanding, when he’s in such a state. ‘From seven years in the future.’

‘I’ll kill you.’

‘Yeah, possibly,’ Ben tells him, dodging again, missed by a millimetre. ‘If you’re fast enough.’

Fuck but he’d like a saber, he thinks. There’s no Rey to throw one this time. Is his whole new life going to be standing around without a weapon in the presence of deranged lunatics?

But then, like he’s read his thoughts, Luke’s saber is in his hand, thrown perfect and fast.

‘Don’t need it,’ Luke tells him, his voice weak. He sounds exhausted by the effort he’s making, and Ben doesn’t think he’s going to last, which isn’t what he wants to think, but there it is. ‘Useless for the ceiling anyway.’

Ben’s already activated it as he catches it, and he attacks himself deftly. There is _no one_ in the galaxy who is better at this than he is, he thinks. Not even Rey, not unless his mother happens to die during their combat, that is. The thought isn’t a cheerful one – he tries to clear his mind of it, to focus.

His younger self seems enraged, and he’s throwing an absolute fit, jabbing wildly, swinging, so fast, electrified with rage and fear. It’s not a particularly skilful technique, but it’s dangerous.

His focus is entirely on Ben as they parry; Ben who is trying to draw him away, and he’s following, following him as he backs out. He wants him anywhere away from Luke, the students, and the ceiling that he could choose to bring down on them all if he thought about it.

He spears at his younger self, practising a move that he learned from Snoke, and he has to dodge it, because he’s never seen that before. Ben isn’t exactly keen on the idea, but the things he knows that his younger self doesn’t are the things he learned as Kylo Ren. Which are, thus, the things he has to use, if he’s got a hope of holding him here. He parries with him, and he uses a particularly unpleasant move, absolutely without any concept of honour by Jedi terms, that his younger self hisses at, as if, in some unbelievable way, he’s _shocked_ by it.

‘This is what you’re going to learn if you go this way,’ Ben tells him. ‘Hope you’ll like it.’

His younger self just tries to slam him with the Force, but of course, he hasn’t learned how to do it in the way Ben can do it. He smiles.

‘You’ll have to train for a while,’ he tells him, ‘if you’re hoping to out-Sith me.’

He pulls him towards him with the Force then, darkness flooding him as he does it, dragging Ben along the floor, his feet limp and an expression of unwelcome surprise on his face as he struggles. How many thousands of times has he done this to someone as Kylo Ren?

Finally, _finally,_ they are around the corner of the hall, into the corridor. Ben releases him, and he tries to breathe out the urge to hurt him, to choke, maim, kill. He can feel it there in him – that suffocating darkness, the power, the possibility of the gift Luke has given him.

Still, it’s not going to be much of a victory if all this ends up with him _and_ his former self tag-teaming to try and murder Luke a few years early, is it? Ben has to say, he thinks he’s probably had enough of killing his family members for one lifetime. The darkness might be there, but the urge to use it isn’t.

And besides, there’s no more time to think because clearly, his younger self has sussed that Ben’s aim was to get him out of the hall, because he’s trying to turn back, but Ben’s more than equal to that – he restricts the way with Luke’s lightsaber, throwing its blade across the entrance, and jumping to standing in front of it too, blocking his path.

‘Don’t think so,’ he says. Then, with a snarling raise of his hand and a curl of his fingers, his younger’s trying to – what – to _choke_ him? Seriously, Ben thinks? He feels his throat tightening, and he gasps in as much as air as he can.

Around the corner, he can hear Luke shouting orders to his students. They must be helping him to keep the ceiling up, and some of them are clearly getting out so maybe there’s an exit, somewhere where the wall’s come down, a way out that Luke’s seen or known. There’s hope.

He uses the Force, releasing Ben’s hold on him. He’s been choked plenty of times. Snoke taught him how to perfect the art, and he taught him mostly by doing it to him. It’s not difficult to stop, not against someone who’s never done it before.

‘It’ll take you years to learn how to do it properly,’ he tells his younger self, as he gulps in air. ‘At least three. That was amateur level stuff, Ben.’

But he doesn’t understand or believe it, because he’s so angry. There’s a storm cloud of rage in him, and he’s un-lidding tremendous, raw power. The voices in his head are so angry.

‘Games,’ he says, as if this continues a conversation they have been having, and his tone’s strangled. ‘You all just fucking play games.’

‘Yeah, and you think _they_ don’t? You think there’ll be fewer games with a guy who pushed his way into your head and told you what you wanted to hear?’

‘He’s never lied to me.’

‘He’s lied to you continually,’ Ben says. ‘He was… manipulative. He said whatever it took to get you to believe him.’

‘The past can die,’ his younger self tells him, but he sounds desperate. ‘You can be free of this and so can I.’

‘I was never free of it. You won’t be.’

‘I _will_.’

‘You won’t at all,’ Ben tells himself, patiently, still holding him back from getting into the hall, still fighting. ‘You’re not thinking straight. You think this is the clearest you’ve ever been, but you’re delusional.’

‘I can’t stay here.’

‘Maybe not,’ he says. ‘But then just quit the Temple and go somewhere else that’s nothing to do with Jedi and Sith. Who the fuck cares? Go on holiday.’

There’s a shout from one of the students, and to Ben it sounds very much like Luke is at the edge of his strength. He doesn’t move, and he thinks that his younger self doesn’t even seem to be trying to get there anymore, to break past him. He’s just…standing, agitated, lost.

But then, he says, ‘Snoke has called for me.’

Ben sighs.

‘He’ll call for someone else if you don’t go.’

‘There’s no one else.’

‘Sure there is,’ Ben says. ‘You really think you’re that special? Let me explain to you how this works. If you don’t go, then he’ll talk to three or four of the other students here. He’ll persuade them to go. He’ll tell each of them that they’re special and important, and he’ll use them to shore up his power instead of you. He can trade you for four. Or he can wait until – someone else comes along. Which they will.’

‘It’s not about _just_ that,’ the young Ben tells him. ‘You think it’s only about power?’

‘Pretty much, yeah.’

‘It’s about so much more.’

Beyond them, not so far away, his uncle is going to collapse any minute. Ben knows that he’s holding the place up not for himself, but for him, and this other Ben, the one he loves, the one he’s trained in this place for so many long years.

‘It isn’t about anything more,’ he tells him. ‘He wants your power and that’s it. You can stop this. The ceiling’s going to collapse in there. It’s going to kill Luke. It’s going to kill those kids. It’ll kill both of us.’

‘He tried to murder _me_ ,’ Ben says, and it’s almost a hiss. ‘I don’t care what happens to that fucker.’

‘You do,’ Ben replies. He keeps his tone gentle.

He’s fairly sure now that his former self’s not going to attack. The adrenaline’s wearing off. The mad glassy eyed look is fading. He looks… exhausted, anxious, numb, but not beyond himself anymore.

That happened to him too, of course. Except by that point he was on a ship, on the way to Snoke, and although there’d been a moment that he almost, almost turned back – he couldn’t. He’d left Luke for dead. He’d _choked_ Anem, who he’d found in the grounds as he ran to the ship, trying to get others to safety. He’d just choked him without even thinking about it, and then, alone in the ship, he’d lain on the ground, his whole body wracked by violent shaking terror. He has no idea how long he lay like that for. Too long.

‘It’s all right,’ he tells him, although it isn’t really.

His younger self shakes his head, and there it is – that dread, the sudden realisation of what’s happening. There’s a spark in his eyes of horror, and confusion.

‘Who are you?’ he asks again, but Ben doesn’t bother with that.

‘Help Luke,’ he tells him, but his younger self is suddenly distracted, and Ben understands why. Snoke’s in his head, and he’s talking to him, soothing, promising. He’s sensing weakness. He’s sensing doubt. Of course he’s in his head.

So Ben does what he should have done fucking ages ago. He touches his younger self’s arms with both of his hands, and he pushes into his mind, searching, using the full extent of the power he that he has, and although it’s a violation to be in someone’s mind like this, he hears the voice that he knew would be there.

 _Doubt is not worthy of you_ , Snoke’s saying. _Doubt is a childish thing._

Ben sighs.

 _Doubt’s pretty fucking healthy sometimes_ , he thinks back, and Snoke must hear him, because there’s a violent, heart-stopping sensation of his being pulled, head-first into Ben’s mind, so Snoke can examine him.

 _Who are you?_ he asks, and his voice isn’t as kind as it was to the younger Ben, not at all.

 _Older Ben Solo_ , he responds, with a mental shrug. _Your former apprentice. I killed you. And …someone else, someone I love, killed your master too._

 _I have no master_ , Snoke says.

_Yes you do. I know who he is. You’re just… a toy. You’re someone’s little puppet._

_Master?_ The younger Ben thinks, and there’s doubt in his tone. _Who is your master?_

_He is a distraction. A Jedi trick. Do not be seduced, young apprentice._

_I’m not a Jedi,_ Ben tells him. _I’ve killed Jedi too. Exterminated them. I’m pretty good at it, actually. You taught me how. The first Jedi I killed were here. But then I hunted them. I murdered all of them except one._

 _You are an absurd and childish trick of Luke Skywalker’s_ , Snoke tells him.

Ben almost smiles.

_I’m not sure Luke’s in the habit of making Jedi-killers. Not really his scene._

He steadies himself.

 _And stay the fuck out of my head_ , he adds. _I will kill you. I already have._

 _Kill him_ , Snoke thinks, to the younger Ben, presumably. _Remove this deceit. Remove the doubt and the lies._

 _He won’t_ ,’ Ben tells him, calmly. _You should have talked to him earlier. You arrived too late._

_What gives you that idea?_

_Because_ , Ben says, _I’ve already lived this. I know how it goes, when I calm down. I know how it feels._

 _He is wrong. In calmness, your strength will be revealed_ , Snoke says. _Calmness and purpose will give you what you need to kill this enemy of truth._

 _The truth is,_ Ben says, _you’re a fucking nightmare to listen to. You’re a manipulative liar. You’re nothing to me._

He takes a deep breath.

 _Luke is something to me_ , he says. _Dad is something to me. My mother is something to me. But you? You’re just a voice in my head that I didn’t invite to be there._

And his younger self looks at him then, and there’s a twitch in his face of grief, realisation, shared understanding. Something.

‘I – ‘ he says, out loud.

‘Help Luke,’ Ben tells him again. ‘For fuck’s sake. You want the building to collapse or what?’

 _I can offer you so much power_ , Snoke says, and his voice is honey and promise. _To fulfil your destiny. To be more than your grandfather._

The younger Ben is plainly torn. He’s sweating, and his face is exhausted and although he’s still holding his saber, he doesn’t seem particularly deadly – just sad, and tired, and doubting.

‘Luke tried to kill me,’ he says, out loud.

Ben shrugs. ‘And he just gave me his power and his saber. He saved my life. Maybe they sort of cancel each other out?’

He smiles at his younger self, a little sadly.

‘I’m going to help Luke now,’ he tells him. ‘I’m going to stop the Temple collapsing. Do what you want. Just know that that guy in your head has got nothing you need.’

With which he turns back, towards the hall, and stretches out his own hand, even as he runs, to hold the ceiling up above them, helping Luke. Behind him, he can sense his younger self, paralysed by doubt and indecision. Luke’s still there, half-drooping, with two students next to him, older by the look of it, their faces full of concentration. Everyone else is gone.

Ben runs towards them.

‘Hi again,’ he says to Luke. ‘Still going?’

‘Always, kid,’ Luke tells him. ‘Where’s Ben?’

‘Thinking.’

‘Great time for it,’ Luke says, sardonic and weary. ‘Since we’re keeping the place up for him. Tell him to take his time with his reflections.’

‘There’s someone in his head,’ Ben tells his uncle. ‘There has been for years.’

Together, they hold the place steady.

‘Go,’ Luke tells his two students. ‘We’ve got this. Go out with the others. Look after them. I’ll be right behind you.’

They look like they want to protest, but they don’t disobey. They edge out through the hall, or what’s left of it. One of them gives a backward glance at Luke and her face is full of love and care. She’s looking at him like she might never see him again.

‘He smashed a wall out back there,’ Luke tells him. ‘They can get out that way.’

‘He’s scared,’ Ben tells Luke. ‘He’s really fucking scared.’

‘You swear too much when you grow up,’ Luke tells him, but he’s smiling.

‘Are we going to hold this place up forever for him?’

‘We’ve got to give him time.’

‘I’m sorry, uncle,’ Ben tells him, because he can’t know exactly when and if he’ll see Luke again. Maybe he will, but not _this_ Luke. ‘I wish I hadn’t done this.’

‘I know. But look, he’s coming now,’ Luke says, gesturing with his head. Sure enough, his younger self is walking towards them, saber in hand but not raised. He looks slightly bewildered, and dangerous and complicated.

‘Ben,’ Luke calls to him.

He walks closer. Ben finds it reassuring that he hasn’t smashed his way out and fled to Snoke, but not so reassuring that he’s not saying anything.

‘It’s okay,’ Luke tells him.

There’s a near imperceptible shake of his head.

‘I’m leaving,’ he tells Luke. ‘I want out of this.’

‘Yeah, I got that.’

‘You can’t stop me.’

‘Probably not,’ Luke says. ‘Where are you thinking of going?’

‘I don’t know. I just can’t stay here.’

‘Okay,’ Luke says, and his tone’s kind, but sad too. ‘Well, you could have gone with my blessing, you know. If you’d thought to ask.’

‘Everyone wants to control me,’ Ben says. ‘I’m tired. You. Snoke. Everyone.’

‘That’s the world,’ Luke says. ‘I just want you to choose the right thing to do.’

Ben’s face flickers with a sudden contempt or sorrow, it’s impossible to tell which.

‘Sorry about – ‘ he says, with a gesture around.

‘I can rebuild it,’ Luke says, sounding incredibly un-bothered. ‘It’s just stones and glass. I’m more concerned about you right now.’

‘But I don’t want your concern,’ Ben tells him.

With which, he turns from them, and walks – calmly – the other way, out towards the exit he obviously also knows is there. He doesn’t look back.

Luke and Ben are alone in the ruins. Nothing holds this together except them. In him, Luke’s power swirls, bright and clear, mixed with Saroona’s. For a few brief moments, they stand there. Luke looks lost in thought. His eyes are very sad.

Ben isn’t sure if this is exactly a victory either. He doesn’t know where his other self is going to go. Perhaps still to Snoke, but at least this time he looked his uncle in the eye before he went. At least he didn’t leave him for dead.

Finally, Luke sighs. ‘No reason for us to stay either,’ he tells Ben, already starting to move out, still holding the ceiling above them up. ‘That didn’t go well, did it?’

‘Relatively it did,’ Ben tells him. ‘Compared to … my memories.’

He follows his uncle out, and as they both leave the hall and step into the ruined, half-destroyed space beyond, they lower their hands and the ceiling, with an almighty crash, begins to cave, to crumble to nothing. Stone by stone, it breaks apart until, Ben thinks, as they run out to the fresh air and life beyond, there’s nothing left at all. But Luke, amazingly, is still smiling. He looks exhausted, but he’s alive. He’s walking. He’s breathing. The night air is clean and crisp, and Ben breathes in deep.

There is a small group of students, gathered, looking at the wreckage, holding lights, their hoods up against the cold. One of them runs towards Luke, and he sees that it’s Anem, his face covered in dust, and an ugly red gash on his arm, whether from Ben or from a falling building, who knows.

‘Master Luke,’ he says, breathlessly. ‘Did you - what happened?’

Then his eyes turn to Ben, and he blinks, slow, not registering. A strange mix of emotions cross his face.

‘Oh,’ he says. ‘But…’

‘I’m a different person,’ Ben tells him. ‘I’m not your friend Ben Solo.’

‘Did you all make it out?’ Luke asks, his eyes scanning the group, worried, exhausted. Anem shakes his head.

‘Seven missing,’ he says, and Luke’s face just crumples.

‘Not including Ben,’ Anem says. ‘I mean, not that – I don’t know. He left. He just took a shuttle.’

‘Did he hurt you?’ Ben asks him, looking at that red, bleeding gash on his arm, but Anem shakes his head.

‘I couldn’t get close. I tried, but he – he used the Force. He didn’t let me get near. Master, he –‘

‘I know,’ Luke says, tiredly. ‘I was there too.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Anem tells him. He sounds broken. ‘I just don’t understand.’

‘Don’t try,’ Luke says. ‘Not understanding it is all right sometimes. Anem, I need to speak alone to my friend.’ He gestures towards Ben. ‘Watch over the others for a little while. They need your strength.’

And then he turns away, taking Ben with him. They walk a short distance, until there is nothing around them but the trees and the night. Above them, the sky is bright with stars. He’ll never come to this place again.

‘Ben,’ Luke says and his voice is quiet and kind. ‘Thank you for helping me.’

‘I –‘

‘I don’t understand,’ Luke continues. ‘I don’t know how you came to be here. But I know that you helped, and I know that that means there’s something left of my nephew. Thank you for showing me that.’

Ben tries to say something, but he isn’t sure what he can say.

‘I’ll find him,’ Luke says. ‘I trust that I’ll be able to do that.’

‘Then you’ll need your power back,’ Ben tells him.

He reaches out his hands, intending to touch his uncle’s shoulders. Instead, he feels Luke’s hands in his own, unexpected and warm.

Probably because he skipped the class, he’s never been the best at power transfer. Still, he thinks he remembers how it’s done, more or less. He tries to give Luke back what is his, and what is Saroona’s too for good measure, although it was another Saroona. It’ll find its way back to her through Luke, or he’ll know what to do with it if it doesn’t. 

As he works on it, he can feel Luke’s presence, alive and steady, like a heartbeat. He’s watching Ben, reading him, his life, his purpose, and he’s full of compassion and kindness and care, just like he always was, had Ben only known how to look for it.

When it’s done, he opens his eyes. He doesn’t have Force. He’s just himself.

Luke smiles at him.

‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘But you know, you were always really bad at transfers. That was really crappy work.’

‘I know.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ Luke tells him. ‘You think you won’t be, but you will.’

‘I destroyed your temple.’

‘Yeah.’ Luke shrugs. ‘But like I said, it’s just stone and glass. The thing you were trying to destroy isn’t in that.’

‘If I – go to Snoke,’ he tells his uncle, because it’s urgent that he does, ‘then I’ll… become very dangerous. To Jedi, I mean. To everyone here.’

‘Do you kill me?’ Luke enquires, in an almost philosophical tone. ‘Or does someone else do that?’

‘You choose it for yourself,’ Ben says. ‘But it’s my fault. You’re trying to protect people from me.’

They stand quietly together, and although he doesn’t have the Force, he thinks, or imagines, that he can sense Luke anyway. He’s still holding his saber, and he hands it back to him now, correctly, with the courtesy he once learned. Luke takes it, equally correctly.

‘That’s only one reality,’ Luke says, carefully, as he sheathes it. ‘I don’t think it’ll go that way here.’

‘Maybe there is no here.’

‘Pretty arrogant to assume your reality’s the only true one,’ his uncle says. ‘Bit naïve of the best student I ever had, I’d say.’

‘I wasn’t the best.’

Luke looks at him. ‘Yes you were. But that’s not why it hurts so much. It’s not about your power, you know.’

‘Why then?’

‘It hurts because you’re my family,’ Luke tells him. ‘With the Force, without it, Jedi, not Jedi. You’re always my family.’

Reality flickers and fades, and Ben knows that he’s leaving this place. He’s moving into another time, and he’s destroyed the Temple and Luke’s life, and he’s alone and far away from help.

‘See you again,’ Luke tells him. ‘In one way or another.’

His voice echoes dimly, as the universe around Ben fades, the ocean lapping the shore, the noise of far-gone things, vanished worlds. Closer though, to Rey, he thinks. Every time that little closer. He closes his eyes, the dizziness around him too much to bear. 


	9. Homecoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one took a little longer to write, and is a bit softer and slower. I'm in a gentle mood :) Thank you always for the lovely comments, which keep me writing and going when inspiration feels far away!

It’s the house on Coruscant that he finds himself in, which looks much the same as it ever was. It’s the same room as before, the one in which his younger self threw a saber at him, except this time he’s alone. That gappy-toothed younger self, he supposes, is all grown up now and has destroyed the Temple and is no longer Ben Solo at all. 

His things are still there, from childhood and holiday visits, but there’s a distinct air of disuse and neglect here now. Dust has filmed over an old book that he sees on the table, something he must, once upon a time, have been reading but never finished. He doesn’t remember it. 

The window is open and the air is fresh and light, indicative of mid-morning. Outside, everything is green and leafy, and there is a quiet calmness to it all. It’s as he remembers. 

The holo-caster that he was once shown, what must have been a long time ago now, is still in the same place and still works, and he finds, on checking what date it is, that it’s not quite a year since he destroyed the temple. Time hasn’t moved him so far along then. 

He has no idea what happened in Coruscant today. He’d cut off all contact with this life. He saw his mother sometimes, her face in his dreams; sensed that she was watching him. She’d never spoken to him, just existed as a vague shadow that he could block out if he tried. His uncle the same. They were always there, on the periphery, a lingering taste of the history he didn’t want to be his own. He just learned to ignore them. In the end, they were only memories. 

He walks out of the room and into the main house, listening, alert for any sort of problem, danger, collapsing things, the sound of a saber singeing flesh, and et cetera but there’s nothing. It’s just the house he grew up in, a little faded, a little stately. After the frantic desperation he’s just been in, the collapse of everything, his own distress, Luke’s, it feels like a mausoleum. 

Yet really it is just the sort of house a princess-in-exile and a smuggler might build together. Nothing is remarkable. There’s no broken wall, death threat scrawled in blood, apparent evidence of recent attack. It’s just someone’s house. 

No one seems to be home either. He walks around, room to room, but there’s plainly no one here. His father’s slung a jacket over a chair and discarded a coffee cup, so it looks as if he _was_ here, and quite recently at that. Leia has a stack of documents piled high on the table she is working from, things that he glances at but which he doesn’t really understand. Resistance things, that much he sees. Plans, schemas, diagrams of ships, exits, entrances. By now there’s a First Order, of course. It’s about to be publicly declared, he remembers, or maybe it already has been. 

One of the maps, though, he understands perfectly well, because he – far across the galaxy – had looked at the exact same map. It’s a part of the route to where Luke is. So by now, Luke has fucked off to his personal island hell, and Leia and Han are, Ben surmises, looking for him too. He hadn’t known that. 

They won’t find him either, he thinks. Not that way. Perhaps if they’d teamed up, they might have done, but there was no chance of that. The idea makes him feel bleakly amused. Kylo Ren, Leia Organa and Han Solo, all working on the same quest, all reading the same maps, locked into their different desperations and purposes, which were – in the end – one and the same. 

He remembers how long he spent staring at this map, trying to read the runes of it, to scour his mind for everything he’d ever learned about the island. How angry it had made him. He’d run his saber through a training droid to let off frustration. Now, he knows exactly where the island is but all he can think is how stupid it is of Luke to have gone there. He knows something about running away. He knows that you can tell yourself it’s your destiny, when all that it really is, is fear. Sometimes he sensed Luke’s thoughts. His sadness and grief. His closedness and his detachment, and his loss and rage. There was nothing good in it. Nothing at all. He’d told himself he hadn’t cared. 

Putting the map back neatly on his mother’s stack of documents, he thinks that while he waits for something to happen, or at least for one or both of his parents to return, he might as well take a shower. It seems presumptuous, but they were always telling him to _come home_ , and now he has, so what else is he supposed to do but be at home? There’s no obvious thing he ought to do here. And there’s also no way around the fact that he really does need to shower. His clothes are still covered in the dust of the ruined temple too, not to mention torn and ripped. He’s been in them for days. 

So, feeling like an interloper, he goes to the bedroom that used to be his, looking for something to change into. The experience of seeing the room is uncanny. It’s been more than seven years since he was in this house, let alone this room. In the interim period, he’s become the Supreme Leader of the First Order and both of the other occupants of the house have died. He is, of course, also dead – in a manner of speaking, but that’s the least affecting fact in the list of realities that he tries, and fails, to process as he looks around his childhood room. 

Everything the same. Neatly stored books, shoes, the everyday things that people have. The bed made; the edges of the coverlet folded down. The window that overlooks the front gardens and the city beyond; the view he’s known for so long. 

It feels wrong to be here, as if it is an intrusion on their privacy, or perhaps even on his own, the Ben Solo he used to be, but the drawers do at least still have some clothes in, stuff from when he was 22 or 23. It’s all simple enough and it sort of fits, so it’ll have to do. 

As he showers, he thinks about the trial that he’s undergoing. He has no idea what he’s supposed to do here, in an empty house. Talk to his father and mother, presumably. Help them to find Luke? But to what end, if Luke doesn’t want to be found and is profoundly unreceptive to any sort of reconciliation with the Resistance, which he’s quite sure – which he sensed easily enough – was the case. Or is he supposed to help them to locate Kylo Ren, who will almost certainly kill them if they do? Is he himself supposed to speak to Kylo Ren, who at this point is twenty-four years old and convinced that his destiny can be best achieved by murdering his uncle, his friends, and everyone who ever loved him? 

Suddenly, there’s a noise, beyond the running water of the shower. A sort of thud. Quickly, he turns the water off, listening, intent, alert. Footsteps downstairs, voices, raised. He can’t make anything out, but it’s clear that his parents, or someone anyway, are home. 

He dresses quickly, feeling odd as he does. They’re not Jedi robes. They’re just the sort of thing that anyone might wear on Coruscant, indeed the sort of thing that he did used to wear, all the time, when he wasn’t with Luke. Putting them on makes him feel like he’s about to perform a part in a play. There’s an air of unreality to it. The Returned Son. 

As he moves downstairs, to where his parents must be, he is aware that his hand is now on the blaster, the ridiculous jewel-encrusted thing. It’s still in his pocket. He’s hoping they’re not going to attack him, but he’s in their home, he’s clearly a bit older than their son, and for all they know, Ben Solo is somewhere far away, rising up the ranks of the First Order, killing whoever he needs to kill to get there. He doesn’t want to have to have a weapon, but his father is so _fast_ , and - 

Surely not though. He can’t let it go that way. He can hear them now, their voices intent. 

_…t_ _he right thing_ , Han is saying, and his tone is withering, as if to imply it is not the right thing at all. 

_When did it get to be like this?_ His mother is asking, and it’s been so long since Ben has heard her voice, other than the one word before she died. He has a sudden, intense feeling, like he’s frozen to the spot, paralysed by her voice, her closeness. 

Being courageous has never been something he’s had a hard time with, but he’s having a hard time with this. He does _not_ want to go into the living space beyond that door. 

_For a while_ , he hears his father saying. _I’ve just gotta do what I know. I can’t -_

_Be with me_ , Ben thinks, automatic, his hand on the door handle, about to open it, although who exactly might be with him, he doesn’t know. Luke, perhaps. Anyone out there who set this fucking awful trial and is watching him now. Any Jedi. The words are steadying, although there’s no obvious answer to his request that he can feel. 

Carefully then, he opens the door. There, sat at the table where Leia’s papers are spread out, are both his mother and his father, apparently deep in conversation. Han’s arms are crossed, and his posture is rigid. 

‘Hi,’ Ben says, as they turn to him, and he tries, but most likely fails, to smile. 

They stare at him. Their faces are frozen with shock, and it would almost be comical, he thinks, if it weren’t so sad too. They just look and look, like he’s the strangest thing they’ve ever seen. 

‘ _Ben_ ,’ his father says. He blinks very rapidly, like he’s trying to right himself after the shock has thrown him off balance. ‘Hi. You’re…home.’ 

Han’s standing up, moving towards him. Leia is still at the table, and he sees that she is trying to understand, but she can’t find what she’s looking for in him, the Force, the identity that he’s always had. 

‘You just look like him. You’re not our son,’ she says, slowly, looking at him. Her eyes are soft, though, and there’s this awful hope in her voice, this tremulous, tiny flicker of hope burning there, so vivid and bright. 

‘I am,’ he tells her, ‘but I’m … from the future. There’s another Ben Solo here too, the one who’s 24. He’s your son too.’ 

‘What?’ Han says, almost stupidly. He’s close to Ben now, and he’s reaching out his hands, like he has to touch him, just to confirm that he’s real. The gesture is so familiar, so painful, that Ben feels sick with it. 

‘It’s complicated,’ he tells them. ‘I don’t have the Force.’ 

Han backs away slightly, just a fraction, but enough to suggest that he’s not as convinced as he was, not as willing to reach out to his son, or not this version of him anyway. 

‘I’ll try to explain,’ Ben suggests. ‘But you might not believe me. I won’t lie to you.’ 

‘Han,’ Leia says, and her tone’s slightly on edge. She wants him to move away, Ben thinks. She’s warning him. 

‘I won’t hurt you,’ he tells them. ‘I’m not intending to hurt you. I’m not Kylo Ren.’ 

‘Who?’ Han says, and _fuck_ , it’s too early. 

They don’t know yet that he’s taken on a new name, or perhaps they’re just beginning to guess that that is who he is, because by this point, Kylo Ren is a name that’s being whispered across the galaxy. The man in the mask. The man who can do things that others can’t. 

‘That’s my… alias,’ he tells his father. ‘I use that name instead of Ben Solo. Where I am in this time.’ 

‘What’s wrong with your original name?’ Han asks, disbelief etched on his features. 

‘I… left the Light behind. I didn’t want the association.’ 

‘We chose the name for you,’ Leia says, and her tone’s just sad more than anything else. ‘It belongs to you.’ 

‘I know that now.’ 

‘But not before,’ she says. ‘ _Kylo Ren_. So that’s your name now. I’ve heard that name.’ 

‘Yes. I’m working with the First Order.’ 

His mother’s face is set, cold and hard. She knows that already, of course. She can see him. She can sense things. The future for Leia is less of a mystery than it might be for other people. 

Her power isn’t less than Luke’s. It’s not less than his. Just because it’s not trained doesn’t mean it isn’t there. 

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Han tells him, and he sounds all at once decisive. ‘Fuck, who cares what name you’re using. It’s just so good to see you.’ 

And he does move towards Ben then, enfolding him in a hug. His father smells of the Falcon and coffee and slightly of the tobacco he promises he doesn’t smoke, and he puts his arms so tightly around Ben that it is almost painful. 

‘We missed you,’ Han tells him, into his shoulder as he hugs him. ‘We missed you so much.’ 

Ben closes his eyes. He hugs him back, and for the briefest of moments, the world is not as bad as he thinks he deserves it to be. 

‘What the hell though?’ Han asks, as he draws away. ‘How did you even get here?’ 

But then his mother is approaching too. Up close, although she is trying to steel her features, there’s a little smile though, just lighting the corner of her eyes, as if the happiness she feels cannot be contained within her, no matter how she tries to lid it. 

‘Ben?’ she asks, and he nods. There’s that hope again, fluttering in her voice. She reaches out to him, but then withdraws her hand, as if she doesn’t dare to touch him, as if he might disappear. 

‘Come and sit down,’ she tells him, or asks, he doesn’t know. ‘Tell us the things you want to tell us.’ 

He does. 

  
\+ 

  
At some point, he thinks his parents have sort of got it, although he’s left a lot of stuff out. He hasn’t told them even half of the things he’s done as Kylo Ren, or anything about Palpatine and Rey. He’s given then a decidedly condensed version of things, because in the end, he doesn’t know what he should and shouldn’t say. Plus, he doesn’t want to tell them everything. There are some things he just can’t bear. 

Finally, it is Leia who speaks. 

‘Ben,’ she says, and her tone is soft, but there’s still that steel in there, the determination. ‘I have to talk alone to your father about this. Could you give us a moment?’ 

Han raises his eyebrows. 

‘Why?’ he asks her. ‘What is there to say that he can’t hear?’ 

‘Don’t,’ Leia says, and Ben, with a jolt, realises that there is something _very_ wrong here. It’s not just his being here and the shock it has caused. There is something wrong between them. 

‘It’s fine,’ he tells them. 

‘It isn’t,’ Han says. ‘He finally does come home, and the first thing you want to do is shut him out. This is exactly the thing that I was talking about...’ 

‘Please,’ Leia says. 

Ben watches them. If he had the Force, he’d be able to communicate wordlessly with Leia, to understand what is happening, to sense it all, but without it, he just sees a woman who looks tired and determined, and in whom there is clearly something very wrong, some awful tension that he can’t place. It could just be about him, but he doesn’t think so. It’s not only that. 

‘I’ll … wait,’ he tells them. ‘I’ll be in the gardens.’ 

Even as he’s leaving the house, walking out into the grounds, he hears the sound of his father’s voice, raised slightly. He tries very hard not to listen. 

The day is fresh and beautiful, warm with a clear blue sky. Everything is lovely here, just as it always was, but the atmosphere is strange, he thinks. His parents’ reaction to his arrival was… blunted. Odd. There was happiness there, and the grief and anger he was expecting, the expressions of numb disbelief when he told them some of the things he had done – and not even the worst of things. The sheer overwhelming disappointment. The questions, their hesitancy and fear. The way his father kept looking at him, as if he couldn’t believe that he was real. It was all there, but somehow, he’d still expected more. 

\+ 

In the end, it is his mother who finds him in the gardens, some minutes later. She walks towards him, her tread light and soft. He hears her coming before he sees her, and as she approaches, he thinks that she has been crying, although she smiles at him as if she hasn’t. She is alone. 

‘You always came here,’ she says. ‘When you were little too.’ 

‘What’s wrong?’ he asks her, and her face flickers. With his mother, there’s no need for ceremony. Their communication has always been through the Force, directed through shared understanding that they don’t need to name. Even without it, he knows no other way to talk to her. 

‘I’m supposed to ask you that,’ she tells him. 

‘But I’m asking you.’ 

‘Han’s supposed to take the Falcon to Horath today,’ she says. ‘He’s got a job there.’ 

This doesn’t strike Ben as particularly somber news. His father had endless jobs on endless planets. Something of this must show in his face, because his mother smiles, ruefully. 

‘The jobs get longer and longer,’ she says. ‘And this one’s going to be the longest of all.’ 

‘He’s leaving permanently?’ 

‘That’s a possibility,’ she says. ‘That’s the most likely possibility.’ 

‘Why?’ 

‘The situation,’ Leia says. ‘Luke. You. It’s … there’s a lot happening.’ 

‘The Resistance,’ Ben says, and it’s not a question. His mother just nods. 

‘You shouldn’t let Han try to find me,’ he tells her. He tries to put urgency in his tone, but perhaps he doesn’t need to, because her eyes are very clear and sharp. There’s no softness, but there’s understanding. His mother as always understands _everything_. 

‘Ah,’ she says. ‘That _is_ how it happens, then? I thought I sensed that, but I didn’t want it to be true.’ 

Ben nods, and her eyes flash with pain. 

‘I won’t be able to stop him,’ she says. ‘He loves you.’ 

‘I know that.’ 

She turns to him, and looks at him so directly, so openly. 

‘I miss you,’ she tells him. ‘I miss you more terribly and completely than I have ever felt anything.’ 

It’s like she’s encased in metal, he thinks. He knows it’s true, but he can’t feel anything from it. It just hangs there. 

‘Okay,’ he says. 

‘And I suppose I die too?’ she says, like that’s nothing. 

‘Everyone dies.’ 

‘What happens to me?’ 

‘You already know that,’ he tells her. ‘You don’t have to pretend. I’m not dad. I know how the Force works. I know the things you can see.’ 

It’s not the first time they’ve had this conversation. 

‘I don’t know when it’ll be the time,’ she says, but she’s understood. ‘I know what I have to do, but –‘ 

‘You don’t know if you have the strength to do it.’ 

‘Exactly.’ 

She just stares vaguely into the middle distance, and he thinks that the whole thing is a complete fucking nightmare. Maybe he should have a deeper, richer thought than that, but in the end, that is what it comes to. This is a nightmare. 

‘In the end you do have the strength to do it,’ he tells her. ‘And it works, I guess, since I’m here now. But, Leia –‘ 

‘If you ask me whether I really think it’s worth it,’ she says, interrupting him, ‘we’ll have our first and only argument.’ 

He stares at her. 

‘You’re worth it,’ she tells him. ‘Fairly obviously, Ben, I think you’re worth it.’ 

‘Why?’ he asks her. ‘I’m –‘ 

‘You’re my son.’ 

‘I’m Kylo Ren too.’ 

‘A made-up name,’ she says, her voice cool. ‘And is not one I accept as valid. You don’t have to tell me all the things you’ve done. I know you didn’t, back there. I know you gave me half a story, to spare me, or to spare yourself, or Han. But it doesn’t matter. I choose to forgive you, and really, there’s nothing you can do about that.’ 

And she smiles, and her voice is softer. ‘I practised saying that.’ 

‘You shouldn’t forgive me.’ 

‘Why not?’ Leia looks at him, and there’s kindness and love in her expression, but also an edge of irony. ‘What’s the worst that could happen if I do?’ 

‘Leia –‘ 

‘Ben,’ she says, calmly. ‘I forgive you. What are you going to do about it?’ 

‘Change.’ 

‘Good,’ she says. ‘Okay. And if I said it to the person you are now, in this time? What would he do?’ 

‘I don’t know. He won’t understand it. It’ll just be a weakness.’ 

‘It’ll annoy him,’ Leia says. ‘Because he can’t control it. In my opinion, anyway. I suppose you’d know better than me.’ 

‘That’s possible,’ he concedes. 

‘Sometimes I can see you,’ she tells him. ‘I mean, this you. I can see the things you _do_ , and I –‘ 

‘You cry,’ Ben says, because he knows. He can hear her. 

‘I wish you’d stop,’ she tells him. ‘And I know you know I’m there, by the way.’ 

‘You and Luke,’ he says. ‘And everyone else. You’re always around.’ 

‘The very worst,’ she says, brittle, ‘is that I have to watch that, and I could stop, could tune it out, but I don’t because it is the _only way_ I get to see you. Do you understand that? I’d rather watch you murder someone in my dreams than not see you at all.’ 

‘I know that too.’ 

‘Yes,’ his mother says. ‘We all know everything about each other and we still can’t reach each other. Sometimes I ask myself, what’s the point in all the knowing, if all it does is take us even further away from each other?’ 

‘You resent the Force.’ 

‘Resent? No. But…’ she sighs. ‘Your father can talk to you in a different way. He doesn’t already know everything.’ 

‘He knows a lot.’ 

‘Yes, but he can’t see the future,’ she says. ‘He doesn’t understand that I’ve already seen the end. I know what I’m going to do. I know what you’re going to do.’ 

‘You could try to reach me sooner,’ Ben says, although he doesn’t hold out a great deal of hope of that. ‘Even if it feels like it’s the wrong time.’ 

‘That’s not what I’m guided to do. I have to follow my destiny.’ 

‘You sound like Kylo Ren,’ he tells her. ‘You sound exactly like him. Or he sounds exactly like you.’ 

‘Except I’m not a murderer.’ 

‘No, but you’re a zealot,’ he says, not angry but simply speaking the truth to her. ‘There is no right time. Not really. You’re waiting until the very end, when everything’s almost lost, but that’s your choice to do it that way. That’s not the Force. If you wanted to, you could try to talk to me now. Probably I won’t like it. But I don’t know what I’d think, because you _never did._ ’ 

He relaxes, consciously. 

‘Not that I blame you,’ he tells her. 

‘It sounds like you do.’ 

‘But I think you’ve got a pretty rigid idea. And it might be wrong, and you’re good at convincing yourself that it isn’t.’ 

‘The Force is never wrong,’ she says, and Ben almost laughs. 

‘You think that works on me, Leia?’ he asks her. ‘I’m not one of Luke’s students anymore. You’ll have to give more than clichés and mysticism.’ He sighs. ‘The Force is never wrong. But I think people interpret it wrongly all the time.’ 

‘You’d know.’ 

‘Well, yeah. I would.’ 

His mother turns to him then. She reaches out her hand, and touches his arm, a gentle, possessive gesture. He thinks there might be tears in her eyes. 

‘You want me to help you,’ she says. ‘I didn’t know that.’ 

‘Didn’t you?’ 

‘I don’t know everything. I know what you’re doing. I can see the future, or some of it anyway. But I don’t know everything you think and feel. You’re so distant.’ 

‘I think I want you to help,’ Ben tells her. ‘But I’m not sure how you can.’ 

‘You’re killing Jedi. Doesn’t it _hurt_?’ 

‘Yes. It hurts.’ 

‘But you don’t care?’ 

‘I think it’s my destiny so it doesn’t matter whether it hurts or not,’ he tells her. ‘Doesn’t it hurt you to see me and do nothing at all? Don’t you do that because you think that’s _your_ destiny?’ 

‘It’s different.’ 

‘Not as much as you think,’ he says, and he turns away, because he’s angry, unexpectedly so. This conversation has been looping in the back of his mind for so many long years. It’s the conversation he always should have had with her, and with himself, and maybe even with Luke. It’s the conversation someone should have had with his grandfather. It’s the conversation that marks this side of family out as what it is. 

‘I’m going to find Dad,’ he tells her. ‘I want to spend time with him before he goes off on his permanent journey.’ 

With which he walks away, out into the terrace, where he is fairly sure that his father will be. He does find him there on a lounger, flicking absently through what appears to be a magazine about mechanics. When he sees Ben approach, he sits up slightly. 

‘Hey kid,’ he says. ‘You and your mother had the Jedi talk, then? Communicated without words and all?’ 

‘We used words,’ Ben says and Han smiles. 

‘I suppose it was all _I know_ and _I know you know._ The usual high-range frequency dialogue that ears like mine can’t hear.’ 

‘Pretty much.’ 

Ben sits down next on the chair to him and Han lies back down, closing his eyes in the sunlight, apparently completely relaxed, having given up on the magazine altogether. 

‘Some of it’s bullshit,’ Han says, without opening his eyes. ‘You all think you know things, but half the time, you’re just guessing or saying what you _want_ to be true. No offense.’ 

‘I agree with you,’ Ben tells him. ‘That’s what I just told Leia, more or less.’ 

He closes his own eyes. The sunlight is warming and pleasant. None of this is real, but it’s not unreal either. It’s _nice_ to be here, he thinks. In some simple and stupid way, even if there’s a bittersweet hue to it all, it’s just nice to be here with his father, in this unreal place. 

‘What’re you up to, anyway?’ Han asks, his tone conversational. ‘In this year. What sort of things do you do?’ 

‘I kill a lot of people.’ 

‘You’re a total fucking mess,’ Han says, but he’s not angry. He’s just putting it out there. 

‘Yeah.’ 

‘It was a really bad decision,’ Han tells him. ‘You know that? It was epically bad.’ 

‘I know.’ 

‘I suppose your mother told you I’m taking a trip?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘I want to find Luke,’ Han says. ‘I’ve got to find him. Leia wants me to stay and fight, but I’ve got to try.’ 

‘Kylo Ren’s trying to find him too.’ 

‘Lovely,’ Han says darkly. ‘Sure that’ll be quite the reunion.’ 

‘It doesn’t happen that way. I never find him.’ 

‘Probably for the best.’ 

‘He shared his power with me,’ Ben tells him. ‘Luke, I mean. When I was destroying everything. He knew who I was, and he just gave me his power like…’ 

‘Like he’s your family?’ 

‘Like I deserved to have it.’ 

‘Ben,’ Han says, and his voice is so kind. ‘You want some advice, kid? Stop smashing yourself up so much. Sounds like you’re doing your best. You think your uncle can’t see that? He can see everything.’ He shakes his head. ‘Apart from himself.’ 

‘I don’t think I’ve exactly done my best.’ 

‘Maybe not,’ Han concedes. ‘But Luke wouldn’t give you his power for any reason other than because he believes in you. Is that so difficult to get?’ 

‘I ruined his temple. I’m killing his students.’ 

‘You _were_ ,’ Han corrects. ‘And now you’re not. You’re trying to fix things.’ 

‘I don’t even know if it’s real.’ 

‘Probably is,’ Han says, lightly. ‘I feel pretty real. All this seems real enough. Fairly sure if I catch up to you, the Force slam you’ll give me’ll hurt like it’s real too.’ 

‘Don’t,’ Ben says, because he can’t bear it. 

‘I got a lead on your uncle,’ Han says, easily. ‘Someone over in Lotten gave a tip.’ 

‘And that’s where you’re going?’ 

‘With a detour,’ Han says. And then, like it’s nothing, ‘Wanna come? I mean, assuming you don’t fade out of existence and all. Could use a hand with the Falcon.’ 

‘I don’t know what my purpose is here.’ 

‘Getting some sense into Luke, maybe,’ Han says. ‘Madness. What’s he doing? What’s your take on this?’ 

‘He’s...’ Ben thinks of the best way to put it. ‘I could sense him. In this time, I mean. He’s... ‘ 

‘You know how he left?’ Han says, interrupting, and Ben shakes his head. 

‘Disappeared in the middle of the night. Fucking insane, really. He was staying here, you know, comforting Leia, talking about you, about how to reach you. Et cetera. And then we woke up, and he’d gone, and we never saw him or heard from him again. That was nine months ago.’ 

‘He thinks he failed me. And himself. His calling.’ 

‘It’s all self-pitying kriffshit,’ Han says, and Ben smiles. 

‘Probably,’ he tells his father. 

‘And now your mother’s taken the same line. Can’t do anything but accept destiny. No point even trying.’ 

‘What is it you want her to do?’ 

‘ _Something_ ,’ Han says. ‘Come with me to find Luke. Or you. To just try. She says it’s not the right time. But even if it isn’t, why not try anyway?’ 

‘You won’t find him from that map,’ Ben tells him, gently. ‘It’s not complete. I looked at the same map. As Kylo Ren, I mean.’ 

‘But you know where he is,’ Han says then, realisation dawning. 

‘I do,’ Ben tells him, and his father turns full towards him, an expression of hope, and energy starting to form. He looks as if he is about to leap forward, to take Ben with him right there and then to the Falcon. 

But even as he begins to speak, there is Leia, coming towards them. Her face displays a resolution that worries Ben. He knows that face. She has made a decision, and there is no turning. 

‘Ben,’ she says, as she approaches. 

‘He knows where Luke is,’ Han tells her, interrupting. ‘So, we can go -’ 

‘I can reach our son,’ Leia tells him, at the same time. ‘I can see him. I’m going to try to reach him.’ 

‘Great,’ Han says. ‘Can you do it from the Falcon on the way to Luke?’ 

‘Don’t try,’ Ben tells her, ignoring this, urgent. ‘That’s not what I meant. It’ll kill you, and you know that. It _did_ kill you. Leia...’ 

‘What?’ Han says. ‘What’s this?’ 

‘I’m not strong enough to project through the Force,’ she tells him. ‘I can’t reach Ben easily. It’ll take me a lot of strength. Perhaps all of it.’ 

There's a pause. 

‘No,’ Han says, flatly. ‘Some other way then. Not that way.’ 

‘There isn’t another way,’ Leia tells him, and Ben realises, all at once, the answer. 

‘There is,’ he tells them. ‘If you and Luke do it together, there is. If Luke and you both use your power, you can reach me without using all of your strength. It doesn’t have to be that way at all.’ 

And he smiles, because it’s so _simple_ in the end. 

‘Give me your coms,’ he tells his father. ‘I’ll give you the coordinates.’ 

Han does, throwing Ben his tiny portable speak-set, the one which Ben knows is connected to the Falcon’s system. He enters the location, the island. It’s a twelve-hour smooth ride if that; nothing at all for a good pilot. Nothing for him; nothing for his father. 

‘It’s not too late,’ he says, and it’s the refrain he’s heard in his head for so long that it’s good to finally say it out loud and not to fight it. ‘It’s really not too late.’ 

Han grins back, all confident ease. 

‘That’s the spirit, kid,’ he tells him. ‘Leia? Coming?’ 

His mother smiles her own, more cautious but no less sincere smile. 

‘Yes,’ she says, simply. ‘Yes.’ 

And Han beams. 

‘Two co-pilots,’ he says. ‘It’ll be the easiest journey in the world.’ 

\+ 

Ben doesn’t fade out. He’s been expecting from the moment he realised what he had to do, the moment he entered the coordinates, to disappear into the mists, except in this scenario, he doesn’t. He stays as they move to the ship, bringing almost nothing with them except a change of clothes and a few documents of Leia’s. He stays as his father sets the course. He stays as his mother decamps to the table and begins to read over her papers, occasionally glancing up at him to smile, to ask him a question. He stays as his father asks him questions about piloting that Ben knows he’s only asking because he wants to talk to him; because he derives pleasure from talking to his son. 

So he just stays and stays, and the time wears on until they are deep in space, and he begins to wonder if he’s made the wrong decision somehow, if this wasn’t what he was supposed to do at all. 

But when he raises this point to his father, Han just shrugs. 

‘I don’t see that at all,’ he says. ‘You think it’s a bad thing? Going to Luke? Trying to help you and him? Helping Leia?’ 

‘No,’ Ben says. 

‘Seems pretty obviously right to me,’ Han tells him, with a smile. ‘Maybe you’ve just got so fucked up you don’t know what’s right and wrong.’ 

‘Maybe.’ 

‘Your uncle being on that island is wrong,’ Han says, his tone definite. ‘It’s stupid and pathetic, and he’s not happy. You being on, what, some kriffing First Order base is equally wrong and stupid and pathetic. And you’re not happy.’ 

‘No,’ Ben agrees. ‘Probably I’m not.’ 

‘What do you do for _fun_?’ his father asks him. 

‘Fun?’ Ben raises his eyebrows. ‘I’m not sure fun comes into it.’ 

‘To relax then?’ 

‘I don’t know.’ He thinks about it. ‘I mostly train. I work with Snoke, and he’s... in my head, directing me. I’m trying to kill the Jedi. I’m looking for Luke.’ 

‘Is there _anything_ in your life that’s nice?’ Han asks him, and Ben can hear, behind the sardonic tone, an edge of real pain. 

Han doesn’t want his son to be in that life. For the first time, he thinks he understands the truth of this. It’s not only that his parents and Luke want him to come home, or to be a good Jedi chosen one, or any of that. Part of it is simpler. They just hate that he’s sad. They see that he is and they hate it. 

‘I don’t think about things that way,’ he tells him. ‘Nice, or not nice. Fun. Relaxation. Those are human things. I’m trying to fulfil my destiny. I think I’m chosen to do the work I’m doing. I don’t identify with ordinary things like fun.’ 

‘You should go out with someone,’ his father tells him, with a smile in his tone. ‘Or find a hobby.’ 

‘A hobby?’ 

‘Yeah. You used to have hobbies, as a kid. To relax.’ 

‘Dad,’ Ben says, and Han inclines his head slightly towards him, listening. ‘Don’t tell Kylo Ren to get a hobby. Don’t try to find him at all. I mean, if it doesn’t work with Luke and Leia. Don’t try to find me.’ 

But Han only rolls his eyes. 

‘Really, kid?’ he says. ‘You think you get to tell me what to do?’ 

‘I’m dangerous. I might really hurt you.’ 

‘Yeah, and you’re my son. I love you. You think I’m going to just leave you alone there and stop caring about you?’ 

‘Maybe you should.’ 

‘Luke must have been a shitty teacher,’ Han says, lightly, ‘if that’s what he taught you that the right thing was.’ 

‘Maybe I was a shitty student.’ 

‘Probably both.’ 

‘Probably.’ 

‘What happened, anyway?’ Han asks. ‘I mean between the person you are now in this time, and the person you are here. What... changed? I don’t fully get the transformation. Not that I’m not happy about it.’ 

_I murdered you. Leia died. She sacrificed herself to reach me. I fell in love with someone who hated_ _Kylo_ _Ren, and who saw straight through him, saw him for what he was. I wanted to save her._

He can’t give the real answers, so he just smiles at his father, and gives the partial truth. 

‘I couldn't keep pretending I wasn’t Ben Solo,’ he tells him. ‘It was getting to be really fucking stupid.’ 

‘Yeah,’ Han says, accepting this. He reaches out to Ben, and puts an arm around him. Ben doesn’t mind. It feels like being loved. He supposes that it isbeing loved. ‘We’re going to find you, kid,’ his father tells him. ‘Okay? We, the three of us, are going to find you.’ 

‘I’ll help you,’ Ben says. ‘For as long as I’m here, I’ll help you.’ 

Behind them, Leia is listening. For how long she’s been there, he doesn’t know. She steps forward, looking towards them both. Her expression is gentle. 

‘Luke knows we’re coming,’ she says. ‘I can sense it.’ 

‘How’s he feeling about that?’ Han asks and Leia just shrugs, as if to say _work it out_. 

‘Right.’ Han sighs. ‘So we’ll have to do a lot of talking.’ 

‘He’s angry,’ she tells him. ‘Afraid.’ 

‘We’ll sort it out,’ Han says, and he smiles. ‘Like always, princess.’ 

Leia raises her eyebrows, but there’s a twinkle in her eyes. 

‘You know that it might not work?’ she tells him. ‘Luke might hate the idea.’ 

‘He won’t. You know what he’s like about Ben.’ 

‘What’s that?’ Ben says, and both his parents turn to him, with identical expressions of wry amusement. 

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Han tells him, and Leia laughs, just slightly, but an unmistakable laugh, until her expression turns serious again, like she’s just understood something for the first time. 

She reaches out then, and for the first time, she touches Ben. She puts her arms out and around him, cautious, hesitant, as if he might push her away, but of course, he doesn’t. And then, she holds onto him, hugging him, bringing him close to her. 

‘I love you,’ she tells him softly, and this time, he can feel it. ‘Thank you.’ 

‘For what?’ 

But even as he asks the question, he realises that he is fading away, disappearing. 

‘The help,’ his mother says, into his ear. ‘And now it’s your turn. Help Luke.’ 

He tries to hold on, of course he does, but it’s useless. His mother and father are both looking at him. 

‘We’ll sort it, kid,’ Han’s telling him, and his expression’s relaxed. ‘We’ve got this. It’s not our first fight, you know.’ 

As he leaves, he feels something – his mother’s touching his face with her hands, and she’s passing him a memory, or a thought, something from her. He sees her vision, and he understands what he’s seeing – the future for her, the world that goes on beyond this point for her and Han. He sees her and Luke, the rain lashing down around them. He sees the flash of the Force connecting them. The blood red of a saber. Hissed voices, rage. He sees a conversation, himself, exhausted, wild-eyed, confused, dark with fury and grief. Luke’s lightness. His mother, talking to him. The conversation about destiny that they never had, the most important thing that they never talked about. His father, alive, waiting for him. The whisper of his mother’s voice. 

_I forgive_ _you_ , she’s saying. _What are you going to do about it?_

And his former self has no answer, but Leia doesn’t need one. She forgives him anyway, and there’s nothing he can do except feel it for what it is: a commitment to him, a promise to him. An expectation that he has to meet, and that, in the end, he does meet. He’s always going towards the same end, only this time, it’s a little faster to get there, and it’s a little less patricidal along the way. 

He sees it unfold, and each layer of it is a little less sad than the last, he thinks. Is the ending happy? Not exactly that, but things aren’t lost. Nothing’s ever lost in that way. 

As he fades, as everything swirls in and out, he watches his mother’s future, and he knows that it’s all right. The gift she has given him is beautiful. 

Where he lands, it’s raining and cold, and there is the sound of the ocean. Darkness has set, and somewhere nearby, he hears a sound coming from a stone hut. Someone in there, someone who can only be Luke Skywalker, is crying. 


	10. Luke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long chapter, to give fair warning, and possibly a bit more draining than some of the others (not that any of them were all that light-hearted). Sorry not sorry ;)

At least, he’s fairly sure his uncle is in there, and that he’s crying, because he can hear these snuffling, sobbing sounds that he thinks must be crying. The idea seems improbable. He didn’t know that Luke could cry.

The reason is him, he supposes. It’s those bodies he left behind; the slaughter and the ugly death. It’s the end of the Temple and everything that Luke built. How can anyone _ever_ atone for that? 

He thinks about the way Luke gave him his power, like it was the most natural thing in the world, even while he – his former self – was destroying the temple.

‘He’ll welcome you,’ il-Artha had said.

Will he? How long has it been now, he wonders. More than a year. Two? Three? How close now is he to the end and the beginning? 

He has to help Luke now, he tells himself as he tries to clear his mind, whatever year it is. He has to believe that the world he creates endures past him, just as Leia showed him. There’s no other way forward than that.

So he walks to the building, the miserable looking stone lodge that Luke has apparently started to call home, and he knocks on the door.

There’s a moment’s pause. The sound of scuffling feet, and then – there at the door – is his uncle, and his expression is one of horror, surprise, and perhaps even repulsion. He stares at Ben, who looks back and holds his hands up, as if to say _no saber_ , _no malicious intent, not a Sith_.

‘Hello Uncle Luke,’ he says.

Luke’s expression is a storm cloud, dark and forbidding.

‘You’re not my nephew,’ he says, and for a single wild moment Ben wonders if he’s got it all so wrong and Luke is actually going to turn tail, slam the door, and lock himself in his house, but then he doesn’t. He just stands there, looking at Ben.

‘Well?’ he says, expression brittle. ‘Come to murder me too?’

‘ _No_ ,’ Ben says, and he tries to put as much sincerity into his voice as he can. ‘I’ve come to…apologise.’

Luke stares.

‘What I did was unspeakable,’ Ben says. ‘I can never, ever make it right. There isn’t anything I can say.’

Luke’s face moves between rage and grief. He looks Ben up and down, and his eyes are very sad, but very shrewd too.

‘You’re not my nephew,’ he says, slowly, ‘but I didn’t mean it the way you took it. You’re older, for one thing. And …the Force isn’t right. I can sense you, but the person I sense isn’t the person standing here in front of me. He’s somewhere else, and believe me when I say, I don’t think _he_ considers himself my nephew.’

‘Probably not,’ Ben concedes. ‘Although I suppose sometimes when I was Kylo Ren, I used to call you Uncle Luke in my head by mistake.’ He tries to smile, although he isn’t sure that humour is going to help much. ‘I usually smashed a training droid to pieces when that happened. It wasn’t easy to deal with.’

Luke’s face displays no trace of warmth.

‘You always told me that I had a problem with frustration,’ he says, lightly. ‘Guess that was true.’ He sighs. ‘And you’re right. I’m not… the Ben Solo of this time. But I am Ben Solo. I am your nephew.’

‘Prove it,’ Luke says. ‘You might be anything. A trick.’

‘I’m not a trick.’

‘So what are you?’

Luke has his hand raised, like he’s about to call on the Force and slam Ben off a cliff, or worse. He does the only thing he thinks he can. He tells the truth.

‘I’m from the future, or one future anyway. I’m atoning. You sent me here.’

Luke’s expression doesn’t change.

‘And…’ Ben goes on. ‘I’m pretty tired and hungry, so I think I’m physically real, but I’m not sure about much else.’

‘You don’t have the Force.’

‘Yeah, and you don’t _use_ the Force,’ Ben says. ‘Which seems like a bit of a waste, by the way. Weren’t you the one who was always talking about using your full potential?’

Luke raises his eyebrows.

‘I’m not at the stage where you can make jokes,’ he says, flatly. ‘Although it’s nice to know your sense of humour still exists.’

Ben smiles, just lightly. ‘And look, I’m not even wearing black.’

‘You’ve been talking to Han. You sound more like him.’

He shrugs. ‘He’s my father.’

‘That’s new,’ Luke says. ‘I didn’t think _Kylo Ren_ did family.’

‘I’m not Kylo Ren.’

‘I can see that,’ Luke says, finally. He sighs. He stands aside, apparently to let Ben into his dwelling. ‘I suppose you should come in.’

Ben does enter and it’s cosier than he would have expected. There’s a fire and some books, and it smells of food, so Luke’s apparently just finished eating something as well – something which, it turns out – was apparently a thin-looking soup, because it is a leftover bowl of this that he now hands wordlessly to Ben.

He takes it and sits at Luke’s tiny stone table, where there’s only one seat. Next to him Luke stands, his presence dark with emotions, although which ones, Ben isn’t sure.

‘So tell me,’ Luke says as Ben eats. ‘The whole story.’

Ben does tell him. He tells him everything. The things he hasn’t told anyone else, the bad things, the worst things. He doesn’t hold back from any of it. He just talks and talks, until his voice is sore from talking.

Luke listens quietly and calmly, occasionally interjecting with a question, but mostly just listening. His eyes hardly ever leave Ben’s face, like he is the most interesting thing he has ever seen. He doesn’t seem upset by it, or shocked, or even that angry. He just waits until Ben’s come to the end of the story.

‘Okay,’ he says, when Ben can’t talk any more.

Ben stares at him. ‘Okay?’

‘Yeah.’ Luke smiles, just softly. ‘What, you want me to throw you out? Stab you with a saber or something? This stuff’s disturbing, Ben. It’s not what I want to hear. But you’re talking to me, you’re telling me, and I’m grateful for that. I can handle the bad stuff better, if you’re the one telling me about it.’

‘Plus,’ Luke adds, ‘I’ve got to say, it’s really nice to see you.’

Ben feels bone-weary, almost sick with fatigue. He isn’t used to talking to people, and he’s having to do a lot of it. It’s very late, and it feels as if he’s been sitting in this place for hours, the fire blazing, Luke just looking at him like –

‘The real you,’ Luke adds. ‘Not the one who’s stalking my dreams in a vision of misery and death, that is.’

‘That was me too,’ Ben says, too tired to push it away.

‘Sure.’ His uncle shrugs. ‘But so was the kid I spent twenty-three years with. And he’s the one it’s nice to see. I missed you a lot.’

He stands up, stretching slightly, yawning. He looks at Ben, gently.

‘Time to sleep, kid,’ he says, lightly. ‘I’ll find you a room.’

+

When Ben wakes up, it’s a light, cool morning. For the first time on this miserable island, it isn’t raining and while it only marginally improves the place, at least it’s something. He’s slept long and deeply, un-plagued by dreams, and he’s fairly sure that his uncle’s benevolent presence has had a hand in that. They didn’t talk about everything, and he knows there’s more to say, but at least he feels certain, for the first time in seven years, that Luke’s okay with him. More than okay.

It’s surprising how much it matters. It’s surprising how much lighter it makes him feel.

Outside on the island’s coast he finds him, already long-awake and staring out towards the ocean, vast and wild, apparently lost in thought.

‘Uncle?’ Ben says, and Luke turns around to him.

In the morning light, Luke’s face is lined with age and grief, and he looks older than Ben remembers, which is strange because he’s younger here than he was when he died.

‘Hi,’ Luke says. If he finds it strange that his nephew from the future has appeared to him, he doesn’t seem to display any trace of it. ‘Sorry. I was watching the ocean, just like always. I’ve been here for two years, and the ocean never changes.’

His uncle’s mental state is clearly not well-served by living alone as a hermit on an island. He doesn’t look altogether well, not with that scruffy beard and the sad, far-away look he’s developed. Ben isn’t sure if it’s sadness or holiness, but he suspects in Luke’s case it’s probably something of both. He’d always thought the whole thing was a bit ridiculous.

‘What are you really doing here anyway?’ he asks him. ‘Shouldn’t you be helping the Resistance?’

‘I’ve left that behind.’

‘Far be it from me to judge,’ Ben says, ‘but why exactly?’

‘You _know why_ ,’ Luke says. ‘I failed. I have to atone.’

He loves Luke, he thinks. That’s the simple edge of the truth of this situation. He just really, really loves him. And his being here on this island is helping no one at all. It’s a waste that he’s here, when he could do so much good somewhere else. So Ben just says what he thinks.

‘It looks more like sulking than atoning to me.’

Luke’s face is closed.

‘You couldn’t possibly understand the nature of this place or what I’m going through.’

‘Right,’ Ben says. He looks out towards the ocean, where the waves smash against the hard, cragged rocks below. A seabird swoops and cries. ‘Sure. Next time you establish some sort of base, can you pick somewhere a bit sunnier? This island’s a shithole.’

Luke glares at him. ‘It’s sacred to Jedi.’

‘I practically _was_ a Jedi. I know where we are. I know what it means. And I think it’s a shithole. Sorry.’

‘You didn’t finish your training,’ Luke tells him, irritation in his tone, and there’s just – no point, Ben thinks. Not really. 

‘Uncle,’ he says instead, and Luke’s expression softens just a fraction, although it might be involuntary. ‘Have you slept at all?’

‘No,’ Luke answers. ‘I couldn’t. I was thinking about everything you said. About Snoke. About how I failed you.’

‘You didn’t fail me,’ Ben tells him, somewhat exasperated by this. ‘I was twenty-three and I was an adult, Luke. I _chose_. Stop… babying me for kriff’s sake. I chose it. Maybe you could have done some stuff better, but I was the one who chose.’

‘Why?’ Luke asks, and it’s clear that he really hasn’t slept; that these thoughts have been swirling around in his mind for too long. ‘I ask myself over and over again. Why would you choose something like that?’

Ben thinks of all the answers he’s got.

‘I wanted to be important,’ he tells Luke. ‘I thought I had a destiny.’

‘You _were_ important,’ Luke says, as if this is the most stupid thing he’s ever heard. ‘What the hell do you mean by that?’

‘I was chosen,’ Ben says. ‘I just misunderstood what it was that I was chosen to do. I was susceptible to people telling me I had a destiny. I made a wrong decision and I didn’t think I could take it back.’

‘You say all this now.’

‘I knew it then too,’ Ben tells him. ‘I always knew. I wasn’t… happy. Nothing was right.’

‘I can’t sense anything,’ Luke says. He sounds pent-up and tired. ‘I keep looking for Ben, but I can’t find him. Han is so certain, but –‘

‘I’m there,’ Ben says.

‘How am I supposed to reach you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I don’t know either. All I see is this … person in a mask. He’s so far away.’ 

‘That mask was a real fucking hassle to wear,’ Ben tells him.

Luke pulls a face.

‘Any point asking why you made it?’

‘I had to carry on my grandfather’s work. That’s what Snoke believed.’

‘He was fucked up as well,’ Luke says, rather darkly. ‘You do know that? What kind of legacy is that to want for yourself?’

‘It was an inspiring story to me,’ Ben says. ‘I thought I could hear his voice in my head. I don’t know. I got sick of all… this.’ He gestures around the island. ‘Sacred misery. Devoutness.’

‘But…’ Luke struggles. ‘You were the best. You could do everything.’

‘Yeah. Except not be a Jedi for five minutes.’

‘Is that what you wanted?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘You wanted to be a Jedi when you were little,’ Luke says.

‘Sure. I wanted to be able to …’ Ben grins. He thinks about being ten. ‘Float through space and stuff. Be a powerful person. But I was always following you and Leia. I was never as _good_ as you were at it.’

Luke shakes his head. ‘That’s fucked up,’ he says. ‘You were really good.

‘It’s so hard, when I see you like that,’ Luke adds, lost in thought. ‘You get that? Watching you do that fucking awful stuff, it’s… unbearable. And you don’t look miserable. When I see you, I mean. You look… purposeful. You don’t look like you’re keen to talk.’

‘People in masks generally don’t look like anything,’ Ben says. ‘Isn’t that the point of them?’

‘And I was purposeful,’ he adds. ‘I had to become the strongest person in the galaxy and …achieve what Vader didn’t. But I had doubts.’

‘Doubts about that?’ Luke says sardonically. ‘Surely not.’

‘Snoke promised me a lot of things,’ Ben says. ‘And I knew that he didn’t mean it. But I thought I could use his power and kill him later. He thought that about me too.’

‘Dark Siders are always so lovely,’ Luke says. He rubs his eyes, plainly exhausted. ‘You were such a nice kid. How did you end up like this?’

‘I told you,’ Ben says. ‘I didn’t think I could be stronger than you or Leia. I thought I could be stronger than Snoke. The top spot on the Light side was taken.’

‘That’s…’ Luke breaks off, apparently unable to find an adjective adequate. ‘How could you be so stupid?’

‘Still,’ Luke says. He smiles ruefully. ‘I suppose it figures Han and Leia would raise a kid who can’t accept second best.’

‘Plus, you did try to … kill me,’ Ben says. ‘I mean, that night, at Temple. You raised your lightsaber. It didn’t really help.’

Luke grimaces. ‘It was your power. There was so much… darkness. I was afraid.’

‘I know that.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Luke says, and he means it. ‘I think about it every day. I wish I could take it back. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just so afraid. I didn’t want you to go down that path.’

Ben’s waited a long time to hear it, and in the end it doesn’t even matter that much. Because –

‘I know,’ he says. ‘That was pretty obvious. It’s not who you are, Luke. I _know_ that.’

‘You’re the lightest thing in the fucking galaxy,’ Ben adds. ‘Sometimes I’d sense your power, and it’d be so bright I’d end up half going along with some bullshit meditation you taught me at Temple just so I could I focus again. I know that you don’t kill people.’

‘You did that as the Supreme Leader?’ Luke says, surprised.

‘Yeah. Sometimes.’

Luke smiles. ‘I’d have paid to see that. What sort of meditation was it that you did?’

‘Oh, something.’ Ben shrugs. ‘Anything that worked. It was the best way to cope with feeling the call to the Light.’

‘Didn’t that strike you as _odd_?’ Luke asks. ‘Reflecting on the compassion at the heart of the universe or whatever, while you were murdering everything around you?’

But then he just shakes his head, like a passing shadow.

‘Whatever,’ he says. ‘You’ve not got the answers. Let’s eat.’

He walks back to his dwelling. Ben follows him.

+

As they eat, his uncle is quiet. He seems to be thinking, and Ben fervently hopes that what he’s thinking about is leaving this island and doing something useful with his life. But then:

‘I’ve got to try, haven’t I?’ Luke says, suddenly. ‘Like you said last night. You have to try to do the right thing, even if you don’t know that it’s real or that there’s any point.’

‘Try what?’ Ben says. To him, this all sounds ominous. He knows that Luke’s forgiven him. That’s perfectly obvious from the way he’s talking to him. But he doesn’t know if Luke’s anywhere close to having forgiven himself.

‘To help you,’ Luke tells him, as if this were obvious. ‘The other you. I shouldn’t have given up on him.’

‘He gave up on you,’ Ben points out.

Luke doesn’t seem to take this on board, because he just shakes his head. ‘There’s a way,’ he says. ‘I’m sure that there is.’

‘Yeah, but firstly by getting off this island.’

‘Yes,’ Luke says, and he smiles. ‘Definitely by doing that, but with you. You have to come home. This whole Kylo Ren thing is – I’ve had enough of it.’

You’re going to call him here, then?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re going to say what?’

Luke sighs. ‘What do you think I should say?’

Ben doesn’t know the answer to this. He can only say the best thing he has. ‘Don’t get into a fight,’ he says. ‘I – I don’t know how you should do it. Just don’t start a sword fight. It won’t help at all.’

‘How did you feel in this time?’ Luke asks.

‘Lonely,’ Ben says, frankly. ‘Confused. Isolated. I talked a lot to Darth Vader’s mask, but you know…’

‘Yeah,’ Luke says, with a moue of distaste. ‘Did you want to come back?’

‘Sometimes, but that wasn’t the only thing I felt.’

‘You didn’t think that you could come back?’

‘No. I was certain that I couldn’t. Snoke was certain that I couldn’t.’

‘I’m sure he was,’ Luke says, and his tone is thoughtful. ‘When exactly did Snoke start talking to you, anyway?’

Ben rubs his eyes. This isn’t the way it goes, the absolution, the get-out card that’s so easy. He knows that.

‘When I was twenty or so,’ he tells Luke. ‘But don’t make excuses for me, uncle. Snoke… helped me, led me where I went. But in the end, _I_ chose.’

‘I’m not making excuses,’ Luke tells him. ‘I think you’re a complete shit, Ben. For what you did, I mean. I don’t think you _can_ excuse it and I know it’s what you chose. But… it still helps me to understand. To know the history of it. It helps me to know what I’m supposed to do now about it. When I know that someone spent three years talking to you about your destiny, that helps me to... get the context of your choice.’

Luke shrugs. ‘And I’m sure you don’t want my advice, but I think it’d help you as well. If you got the context a bit clearer. You’d find it easier to forgive yourself.’

‘He – I – might kill you,’ Ben says, ignoring this.

‘Yeah, maybe.’ Luke shrugs. ‘But then that’s what happens... I’m going to meditate now. I want to see my nephew.’

‘Wait,’ Ben says. He’s sure, so sure, that this is more than a projection. These worlds have their own order, and their own consequences. Things happen here that can’t be undone. Even if it’s in another reality, even if it doesn’t influence his own –

‘Uncle, he’s not worth dying for. _I’m_ not.’

‘Now who’s babying who?’ Luke says, with a half-smile. He reaches out and, just gently, touches Ben’s arm with his hand. ‘I decide what I do about my own nephew, kid. I decide if he’s worth it.’

And with that, he closes his eyes. Although Ben might be imagining it, he thinks he can feel a ripple of the Force, the shifting, twisting feeling of interaction between Jedi, a reaching out from one to another.

Luke’s face is calm, washed free of all emotions. Ben watches dispassionately. The ocean laps. The rain sidles down because, of course, it’s started raining again. He fucking hates this island. If he’s ever able to get out of this family reunion, he’s not coming back here. Maybe he’ll go somewhere sunny. Somewhere _nice_. He and Rey can go – he doesn’t know. Somewhere.

Eventually, Luke opens his eyes.

‘Wow,’ he says. ‘You’re really fucked off. You ran me through with your saber.’

Ben shrugs. ‘Yeah. Sorry. It was a bad year.’

‘Well,’ Luke concludes. He sounds phlegmatic enough. ‘Suppose he’ll be here soon. Where are you?’

Ben thinks. Where was he, exactly?

‘Edge of the Unknown Regions, I think,’ he says. ‘Mostly, anyway. We had a base there.’

‘That’s a good seven hours,’ Luke says, thinking. ‘Even if he drives like a maniac, which, let’s face it, he’s probably doing. You were pulling on your coat almost as I told you how to get here.’

‘Yeah. I really wanted to kill you.’

‘I got that.’ Luke’s tone is very dry.

‘What did I say?’

Luke pulls a face. ‘About what you’d expect, kid. What do _you_ think you said?’

‘That I – that the Jedi had to die, and the Sith too. That it was a mistake to call me to you. That you’d regret it. That you were naïve. That I’d kill you and the Jedi with you.’

‘Et cetera,’ Luke says, not sounding in the slightest bit concerned by this. ‘The usual stuff. It’s all empty noise. I don’t know where you got all that from. You sound like one of the bad guys in those comics you were always reading on the holo when you were little.’

‘I believed it.’

‘Did you?’ his uncle’s tone is soft. ‘I thought you did, but now I see you like this, and I’m starting to think you don’t believe it at all.’

‘Anyway.’ Luke stands up. ‘We’ve got a few hours. What do you wanna do before he turns up?’

Ben thinks about it. Probably this is the last time, in any reality, he’ll spend with Luke as a living, breathing entity. Who knows. Perhaps he’ll die here too. Perhaps Kylo Ren will kill them both. It seems like a distinct possibility to him.

What should he have done, if he’d had more time with Luke? What does he _want_ to do, if this is the last chance they’ll get? The answer seems obvious.

‘I never finished training with you. Even if I can’t use the Force, guess I’d like to know what I missed.’

Luke smiles.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘We can do that. But you’re going to have to at least borrow a lightsaber for some of it.’

‘Then you’ll have to get one too,’ Ben points out. He grins. ‘But I suppose of course you’ve got some lying around.’

‘Yeah,’ Luke tells him. ‘I am a Jedi, you know. And according to you, I’m in the _top spot_.’

‘Well, you would be if you hadn’t given it all up to sulk on a miserable rock,’ Ben says and Luke laughs.

‘There’s no top spot, kid,’ he tells him. ‘There’s just ordinary people doing what they can. I wish I’d told you that before. I obviously should have done.’

As they walk together towards one of the buildings that must be what was once, and what still could be, a training hall, Luke puts a proprietary arm around his shoulder. Ben relaxes into it. It’s okay with him. Luke’s his family.

+

Some hours later, there’s the groaning whir of a ship about to land. It sounds like it’s driving fast and angry.

‘Lovely,’ Luke says, dryly. ‘You sound as calm and balanced as ever.’ 

He gives Ben a smile, although he’s drenched in sweat and the lightsaber in his hand is very white, thrumming with energy. They’ve been fighting, and as it turns out, even without the Force, Ben can still hold a lightsaber pretty much the same as always. Maybe it’s the power of the island, or being with Luke, but he feels as if it’s no different to always. 

‘I suppose you don’t want to be involved in this,’ Luke says, deactivating his saber. ‘I mean, you don’t want to speak to your past self.’

‘No,’ Ben says, deactivating his own too, the one that he’s borrowed from Luke. ‘It has to be you. But I’ll be there.’

Luke just nods.

‘Wish me luck, then,’ he says. ‘And by the way, you’re wrong that you can’t use the Force. No one can fight like that without it. I think you just can’t sense it. It’s still there.’ He looks to Ben. ‘That saber’s supposed to be yours, kid. Whatever they said, whatever all of this means, believe me, you’re supposed to have it.’

‘Plus,’ he says. ‘I suppose if this all goes to hell, you’d be better off with one.’

And with that he walks off, as if he didn’t have a care in the world, towards the ship in which Kylo Ren is waiting to kill him. Ben quietly follows at a distance, the lightsaber sheathed at his side.

+

He watches at a distance. He sees Luke, approaching the ship. The door opening. Kylo Ren, himself, stepping out. He’s not in his mask, which Ben takes as a good sign, but on the other hand, he’s got his lightsaber up and glowing, which he doesn’t find quite so reassuring. Luke doesn’t step back or flinch. He doesn’t even have his own lightsaber active. He just walks towards him.

There are words between them, but he can’t hear what they are. Some sort of push with the Force, Ben thinks, which he’s certain will be from him. The ground shakes ominously. Luke seems to handling it though – there’s a sudden settling of motion, and Kylo Ren looks frustrated.

Then, Luke gestures back, towards where Ben is, hidden out of sight. He moves, and Kylo Ren follows. As they come closer, he sees that they are locked into a battle. Luke’s hand is steadying against what must be a barrier between them. Kylo Ren’s own hand is outstretched and his face is drawn and pale. 

‘Are you bringing friends?’ Luke says, looking around, although his hand doesn’t twitch. Kylo Ren purses his lips. He’s pushing back. Ben thinks he can feel it, the tension between them; the tremendous energy they are both expanding, and wasting on this battle. He had wanted this for so long. It must all seem so tantalisingly close. 

‘Just me.’ Kylo Ren’s voice is very cold. ‘I need no one else. Surrender.’

‘No,’ Luke says, almost patiently. ‘Of course I’m not going to surrender. You think I dragged you out here for that? I just wanted to tell you that I forgive you, Ben. Kill me if you want. I just want you to know that I forgive you and that I’m… really fucked off with you as well.’

‘This is meaningless,’ Kylo Ren says, but his face flickers, just slightly. He renews his efforts apparently to push apart the barrier between him and Luke. His hand is almost shaking.

‘You made an incredibly poor choice,’ Luke tells him. ‘And you think you can’t take it back, that it’s all too late now. But that’s just doubly stupid. You even know that.’

Ren’s face hardens.

‘You still think I’m Ben Solo,’ he says. ‘A naïve, weak child.’

‘Ben’s a stronger person than me, actually,’ Luke says, easily. ‘He’s a really great kid and I love him. We all do. He should probably hate himself a bit less.’

Kylo Ren says nothing. He keeps his hand outstretched. But god there’s _something_ there _._ Even Ben can see that there’s a shadow there in him, a conflict. 

‘You think we want you to come home because you’re powerful,’ Luke says. ‘But that’s not it at all. You don’t have to be a Jedi. I don’t care about that. If you didn’t have the Force, I’d love you just as much. I’d still want you to come home.’

‘Your nephew’s dead,’ Kylo Ren tells him. ‘And I’ll kill you too.’

Luke just sighs.

‘Change the record,’ he says. ‘You don’t believe in any of it. Not really. But if you want to throw away your life going over the same old fucking lines, pretending they’re real, working yourself up into a fever to convince yourself it’s all true, I suppose that’s up to you.’

Kylo Ren shakes his head like a fly is buzzing there, something he wants to shake away. He looks confused and angry. This isn’t what he’s been expecting, and it isn’t what he wants. 

‘I think you should get out,’ Luke adds. ‘And so do you. You _know_ that, Ben.’

With his hand, he obviously lifts up the barrier between them. There’s a sudden snap of energy, a frisson of power that even Ben can feel.

‘You can kill me now if you want to,’ Luke says, and his tone is very calm. ‘I’m not stopping you. I said what I had to say. You make your own choices about what you do.’

And he turns and walks away, back to Kylo Ren, whose lightsaber is outstretched, and whose hand is raised. The Force is with him, and he’s angry, so very, very angry. All the voices in his head are angry too. They’re blood and rage and fear that can’t be sated.

 _Fuck_ , Ben thinks.

Kylo Ren is staring at Luke. His expression is painfully torn.

‘I don’t know how to get out,’ he says.

There’s a moment’s pause. Luke inhales a sharp breath, and turns back around to face him.

‘It’s probably pretty easy, you know,’ he says, almost casually. ‘You just don’t… go back. You can stay here and decide what you want to do next.’

‘I don’t like this island,’ Kylo Ren says. His lightsaber’s still raised, but he doesn’t seem to be intending to use it, because he’s holding it almost loosely, like at any moment it might drop.

‘Yeah, maybe it’s a shithole.’ Luke shrugs. ‘But the offer stands.’

‘I do sometimes have doubts about my path,’ Kylo Ren says. He looks as if Luke might throw a curse at him or the ground beneath him might collapse.

‘Great,’ Luke says. ‘Glad to hear it. I’d hate to think of someone I love having no doubts at all about becoming a Sith. It wouldn’t speak that highly of the person, would it?’

‘Love?’ Ren repeats, like the word is foreign to him. Luke almost rolls his eyes.

‘Ben, really?’

‘Ben Solo is dead.’

‘He’s pretty present for a dead guy, in my opinion,’ Luke says. ‘Anyway this conversation’s boring.’

Kylo Ren blinks.

‘Yeah,’ Luke says. His tone is so light, almost airy. He seems completely relaxed, although he can’t be, not really, not with a lightsaber so close, and standing across from someone who is so angry. ‘This is really a boring conversation. It’s just going to go round in circles. You don’t think you’re Ben Solo and I think you are Ben Solo. We’re probably both right. You want a tour of the island?’

‘I don’t understand you.’

‘Yes you do,’ Luke says. ‘Come on. You’re going to either stay here or you’re going to kill me. We both know that. Walk with me. There’s some really interesting stuff here. What does an extra few minutes matter either way? You don’t have any other plans.’

Kylo Ren, incredibly, shrugs at that, as if to give his consent. They walk together. Ben follows them, softly, tiptoeing and cautious although he knows that neither his uncle nor his former self have eyes for anything but each other now. They won’t see him. Both of them know that this is how something ends.

Ren’s saber is still activated, its red glow foggy against the darkening light. It’s dusk, and the island is covered in shadows and fading light. Distantly, insects call out. 

‘So,’ Luke says as they walk, conversationally. ‘You know, I found the _Iristhana_. The sacred text.’

‘The one you were looking for,’ Kylo Ren says. His tone is curiously distant. ‘Where?’

‘Veric,’ Luke says. ‘Little planet in the Western Rim.’

‘What did it say?’

‘No idea,’ Luke says and Kylo Ren’s face registers a brief moment of surprise before he veils it. ‘I haven’t been yet. I haven’t left this island for two years.’

The unspoken question _why_ seems to hover between them, but Kylo Ren doesn’t ask it. Perhaps he understands.

‘On the plus side,’ Luke says, ‘I learned how to split my form. Finally.’

Ren turns to him, sharp. ‘How?’ 

‘Painstaking, miserable work,’ Luke says. ‘You ever managed?’

Kylo Ren shakes his head. ‘It sometimes seems close. But I never find the way.’

‘It feels good,’ Luke says. ‘I can get off this island that way, at least.’

‘What’s stopping you otherwise?’ Kylo Ren says irritably, and he sounds in that moment very much more like Ben Solo.

‘Guilt.’ Luke draws a deep breath. ‘I miss you all the time, Ben. You know that? I am so fucking angry with you, and I miss you so much. It’s difficult.’

‘Anger has no place for Jedi.’

‘That’s bullshit,’ Luke says. ‘Jedi get angry all the time. It’s just an emotion. It’s part of connecting to the world. All that matters is what you do with it.’

‘The past has to die,’ Kylo Ren says. He’s still holding his lightsaber, as if at any moment he might launch. His body is a coil of tension, of rage, and of fear. ‘You should let go of Ben Solo. Of the past.’

‘It can’t die,’ Luke says. ‘You know that, for fuck’s sake. You can’t _kill_ the past. You can kill people _from_ your past, but you can’t kill your own memories. Why would I want to kill my memories of my nephew anyway? Who gave you this idea?’

‘Snoke,’ Ren says, promptly. ‘His practices are superior to those of the Jedi.’ 

‘Yeah? Show me something he taught you then,’ Luke says.

Kylo Ren stares at him, distaste crossing his features. ‘You want me to show you something Snoke taught to me?’

‘Sure,’ Luke says. ‘Always wondered what that was like. You know. Sith training. It’s been a couple of years since you left. I’m sure you know something I don’t.’

Kylo Ren lifts his hand, directing it towards a nearby tree. Its leaves drop, one by one. The truck seems to wither and then slowly, creakingly, to die. The tree could almost be screaming in pain. It withers to nothing but deadwood and fallen, curled leaves.

‘Okay,’ Luke says. ‘I definitely didn’t know that one.’

And then he mimics the gesture with his own hand. A little slower, until another tree dies, in the same apparent agony. Luke’s face is full of pain as he does it. Kylo Ren stares at him.

‘Don’t do that,’ he says. There’s distress in his tone. 

‘Why not?’

‘I – you created a disturbance in the Force.’

‘Yeah.’ Luke’s face is still full of what looks like pain. This must be costing him a lot. ‘But let’s say I want to become a Sith too, Ben. You up for training me?’

‘ _No_ ,’ Ren responds, almost instinctively.

‘Right,’ Luke agrees. ‘Because pretty obviously I’m not a Sith. And neither are you. When I see you doing this stuff, I feel _exactly the same way_ you just felt seeing me do it. Destiny’s not a real thing, kid. It’s just about choices.’

Luke grits his teeth.

‘Watch,’ he says. ‘Watch how it feels when it’s someone you love.’

He lifts up his hand, slowly at first. His face seems wreathed in a sudden sallowness, an unkindness. Under them, the earth begins to shake. Trees wither, faster and faster, their leaves falling. There is a screaming call, and from the sky a bird falls, dying, dying, dead. Everything around them is dying.

Ben feels sick. Luke can’t be doing this. It’s a violation. It’s an undoing of everything that is true. Luke is light and strength and protection and love. He can’t do this.

Kylo Ren seems to feel much the same way, because he’s staring around them, eyes wide. Luke swings his fingers, a smirk on his face, and a fire starts. There’s the cry of an animal whose home is burning, a rabbit, a fox, Ben doesn’t know. A storm is coming. Every blade of the grass beneath them seems to be withering and fading, turning to brown and dead. Luke is going to destroy everything.

‘Stop this,’ Kylo Ren says. ‘ _Stop._ ’

He lifts his own hand, trying to steady it. Ben, although he knows it’s perfectly useless, tries to help him. He closes his eyes. _Grow_ , he thinks. _Don’t die. Don’t die._

But Luke’s too strong. Destruction is spreading across the island, and from there the planet, the galaxy, everything. His face is the face of a thousand Sith who have gone before him. He looks distorted, terrible. The Force is rupturing, splitting, transforming and splintering. Leia is screaming, sensing it, not understanding. Luke is going to kill her, to kill everyone and anything in his way.

‘I see now why you like this so much,’ Luke says, and his voice is full of rage. ‘Wow.’

There’s a horrible few seconds of struggle. Ben clings onto the tree he’s behind, praying that it won’t fall. Kylo Ren seems to be managing to hold back some of it, because at least one of the fires has stopped. There’s growth. Ben sees the first shoots of new grass, a flicker of green, the budding and leaf of a tree. He’s concentrating; Luke’s pulling against it. There’s a groan as a giant, ancient tree falls in the distance. A crash of lightning overhead.

There’s still screaming on the air. The guardians of this place are here. They’re living, complex beings, and Luke’s so strong – if he loses control then this is all over and horror is all there is for the galaxy. If he takes Kylo Ren with him down this path, then –

He can see the ghosts of the Sith. They’re everywhere. They’re looking at Luke, and they want him for their own. They’re hungry. They’re so hungry for his power. All they ever want is someone else’s power.

‘Don’t,’ Ren says, but his voice sounds so much like Ben Solo’s. He’s not strong enough to stop it, although he’s trying. The ground opens up nearby, sucking dead earth and grass into it like a whirlpool. Nothing can get out.

‘Fuck it,’ he says. ‘Fuck.’

Luke’s face is snarling, furious, full of the anger and grief that has been burning him for so long.

‘You were right that you weren’t strong enough,’ he tells Kylo Ren. ‘You’re nothing. A waste of your mother’s power. Of mine.’

He lashes with his hand and there’s a cry of pain, or shock, or even disbelief. Kylo Ren’s face is bleeding, and he’s down on the ground, but he’s holding on. Even as he’s kneeling, he’s holding onto the Force that has shaped and driven his whole life.

‘You’re a stupid, spoiled child,’ Luke says, and his voice is hateful. It’s the worst thing Ben has ever heard, obscene and dark. ‘You were always such a disappointment. So _sensitive_ and so weak. You don’t deserve this kind of power. But I do.’

‘No you don’t’ Kylo Ren says, almost tiredly, and he’s standing up, pushing himself. He sounds… broken, Ben thinks. He doesn’t know what to do. His arm is extended towards Luke, who is grimacing with effort, trying to stop him. ‘Maybe I do. But you don’t.’

Luke laughs. ‘Going to tell me to return to the Light?’ he says, voice sardonic. ‘Like we did to you? All the time we spent running around trying to save you, you stupid, worthless brat. Did you know your mother still cries about you? Isn’t that why you did it? To finally get some attention. To finally be _important_?’

The lightning cracks and breaks overhead. Rain pours, gushing down, down. Luke waves his hand and with a resounding crash, one of the buildings comes down too, falling into stone and rubble and ash.

‘I know she cries,’ Kylo Ren says. ‘Of course I know. I can hear her.’

‘I can take her place,’ Luke says. ‘Lead the resistance. Create a new army, build something stronger. You won’t have to hear her anymore. Isn’t that what you want?’

Kylo Ren looks at him.

‘Not really, no,’ he says, and he sounds resolved. ‘I don’t think that is what I want.’

‘Too bad for you then,’ Luke says and he laughs. ‘Stupid fucking kid.’

Kylo Ren closes his eyes, for a brief moment. He seems to be doing something, although Ben doesn’t know what, or why. 

There’s a second’s pause, another, another. Luke’s face is greying, like he’s aging, becoming more withered, less of himself. The storm roils above them both.

But then there’s a flicker of something lighter, the Force restoring balance. Ren grits his teeth. Stands up taller. There’s blood everywhere on him from where Luke has cut him, running down his face, into his mouth, onto his clothes, his arms. Both his hands are raised, pushing back. There’s the smell of light rain, a cessation of the storm; a sweetness on the air. The ocean is lashing a little less.

That grasping, desperate pit is closing, The earth is solidifying, calming itself. Kylo Ren is closing it. He’s crying, Ben realises. There’s a tear running down his face.

‘Luke, just stop this,’ he says, sounding so much younger. His arms are outstretched. ‘Please.’

‘ _Weak_ ,’ Luke says. ‘You think please makes any difference to me? After everything you’ve done?’

There’s a crashing sound. A building is falling, stone by stone.

Kylo Ren stretches out his hand. The building steadies.

‘It doesn’t make any difference,’ he says. ‘But this isn’t you. This is wrong. Luke. _Uncle Luke_. Stop.’

There’s a crack in the building. Part of its roof is falling in. It’s an irreplaceable, sacred place.

‘Please,’ Kylo Ren says again. ‘You’re a Jedi. You don’t do this.’

‘You did,’ Luke says. ‘And didn’t it feel like coming home? Finally, the power you wanted, that you deserved. The galaxy at your feet.’

Kylo Ren’s face is white and pale. Another tear runs down his face, mingling with the blood.

‘No,’ he says. ‘It didn’t feel like coming home at all. It felt like fucking my life up.’

He lifts his hand, and the temple holds.

‘It felt awful and sad,’ he continues, the words ringing out, clear in the darkness. ‘And I hated it. And you’re going to hate it too. _Stop_. Luke.’

And then, with what must be so much of his strength, Luke does stop. His face is still curled into a snarl, but he lowers his hands. The earth stops screaming. He breathes in heavily, panting, gasping.

‘Fuck,’ Kylo Ren says. He moves, almost runs, towards Luke, lightsaber sheathed now. His face is still gushing blood but he doesn’t seem to have noticed. ‘What the fuck did you do that for?’

Luke shudders. He looks like he might be sick.

‘I – I had to – ‘ Luke can hardly speak.

Kylo Ren moves towards his uncle, and his face is terrified. He puts a hand out to him, as if to steady him. He seems to realise what he is doing and abruptly withdraws it, but only half of the way, like he can’t decide -

Everything around them is scorched and blackened. There are no plants, nor animals left. The trees have lost all colour. Everything is gone and dead and dying. The temples are stone and rubble.

Luke’s still breathing heavily.

‘That’s how it feels,’ he says, and his voice is hoarse and old. ‘Every time I see you, that’s how it feels. That’s how bad it is.’

There’s a pause. Kylo Ren takes what appears to be a deep breath. He looks around at the devastation that Luke has created. At his uncle.

‘Well, that’s pretty bad,’ he says.

And then, carefully, almost curiously, he lifts his hand. Gently, he closes his eyes. There’s a fluttering sound. A bird lifts up, awakening, flying back out, out into the vastness of the sky. Another. Everything is greening, growing, changing. The earth is covered with grass and moss. Undoing, undoing. The scorched earth is full of life.

He opens his eyes and turns to Luke.

‘See? It’s not too late,’ Luke says, and his voice is still hoarse and scarred, but he sounds like himself. ‘It never was. You know that really. You can still choose to be someone else.’

And he stretches out his hand and, just softly, touches Kylo Ren’s face with his fingers. The cut’s disappearing, and Ben, watching, thinks about the inevitability of some things that will always be the same.

‘Come home,’ Luke tells him. ‘Please. We love you so much. We need you. You’re not a disappointment to us. You’re not less than us. That’s just the thing they tell you to get you to stay with them. I cannot tell you how untrue it is. It’s not what I think. It’s not what I have ever thought. And it’s not something I will ever think about you, Ben. Not ever.’

Ben holds his breath.

‘Okay,’ Kylo Ren says, almost as if it’s no big deal at all. He’s still looking around, as if he can’t believe any of this has really happened. And then he turns to his uncle and he smiles.

‘Just don’t make me do that again,’ he says. ‘I’m not a huge fan of having all the dead Jedi in my ear, telling me what a shit I am.’

Luke lets out a sigh of relief, like he’s been holding his breath. He wheezes, almost collapsing to the ground. Instinctive, Kylo Ren leans to help him, holding him up, supporting him.

‘You talked to them, huh?’ Luke says.

‘Yeah. I didn’t think I’d be able to. I haven’t for – a while.’

Luke smiles. ‘Why wouldn’t you be able to talk to your family?’

Ben Solo, if that is who he is, is still half-smiling.

‘That’s what Obi-Wan said too. He told me I was pretending I didn’t know the difference between not wanting to do something and not being able to do it.’ He runs a hand through his hair, which has been soaked by the rain. ‘And he said some other stuff too, but -’

Luke’s still breathing heavily, like he’s in pain.

‘Let me help you,’ Ben says. ‘You can’t feel good. You just smashed up half a planet, fuck knows why. I think I know how to - ’

He reaches out his hand, and puts it on his uncle’s shoulder. He closes his eyes. Luke closes his own eyes. Both of them look deeply at peace.

They open their eyes together and Luke breathes a sigh of relief.

‘Thanks,’ he says. 

‘I still really don’t like this island, you know,’ Ben says, looking around him. ‘I don’t know why these places are always so bad.’

‘No one likes them,’ Luke points out. ‘Coming here is devotion, not a holiday. What’d the rest of them say? The Jedi, I mean?’

‘Oh, the usual.’ Ben shrugs. He looks visibly different, more relaxed and more like himself. He rubs his hand across his eyes, like he’s tired, or just waking up. ‘Welcome back, I suppose. Be good. Don’t let you destroy the world. Don’t destroy the world myself.’

Luke just smiles. He reaches out his hand to his nephew’s arm.

‘I was never going to destroy the world.’

‘Maybe I was.’ He moves closer to Luke. ‘You sure you’re okay?’

‘Yeah.’ Luke briefly closes his eyes. ‘I just need a shower.’

‘I suppose it’s just a waterfall or something here,’ Ben says, looking around rather bleakly. ‘Something wild and unfriendly. Like always.’

‘This is a _sacred place_ ,’ Luke tells him but there’s a smile in his tone.

Ben grins. His smile is rusty, but it’s definitely there. ‘Sacredness and plumbing never seem to go together, do they?’

He pauses, a flash of devastation running across him.

‘How can you want me here, Luke?’

Luke doesn’t say anything at first. He just puts an arm around him and Ben doesn’t move away.

‘I just do,’ he says. ‘It’s just how it is. I choose to forgive you.’

There’s a flicker in the Force, a friction. Ben’s face contorts slightly, like he’s being pulled away. An expression of irritation or pain crosses his features. He grimaces.

‘Snoke,’ he says, by way of explanation. Luke just keeps his arm around him, friendly and warm.

‘It’s rude of him to interrupt our conversation,’ he says. ‘And it’s up to you who you listen to in your head, you know.’

Ben closes his eyes. He looks like he’s concentrating. His own arm moves to fasten around Luke, as if he is holding onto him for support.

‘I don’t want this,’ he says, eyes still closed.

Luke seems to be projecting benevolent thoughts towards him. Something shifts; Ben’s expression lightens. He opens his eyes.

‘Thanks,’ he says.

‘I would have helped before,’ Luke tells him. ‘If you’d seen fit to mention it was happening. I really wish you had.’

‘I didn’t think I could tell you,’ Ben says. ‘Not about those things. I didn’t think you’d understand why I wanted it.’

Luke keeps his arm around him.

‘He said all the usual things, I suppose?’ Luke says, his tone ironic. ‘Ultimate power can be yours if you trust in me, et cetera destiny et cetera.’

‘He was angry. He felt the disturbance in the Force. He doesn’t understand it. He told me to return immediately. He requires me.’

‘And…’ Luke’s voice trails off, but the question is clear.

Ben raises his eyebrows.

‘Luke, really? What if you become a Sith?’

Luke grins.

‘I know I’ve got a lot to do,’ Ben adds, hastily. ‘I know I can’t make any of it right.’

‘Eat before we get into all that,’ Luke says. ‘You must be starving. I suppose you ran into your ship at lightning speed, like a maniac, to get here.’

Ben nods. He’s smiling, like he can’t stop himself. He looks happy, relieved, set free in some way. Luke’s smiling too.

‘Hang on,’ Ben says suddenly. ‘I have to just…kriff, stupid thing.’

And then, with almost no ceremony, he lifts his lightsaber out of its holster and, with a flick of the Force, lets it spin and spin, whirling far out into the ocean, swept with the wind, and away, down into the sea.

‘I’m not actually all that keen on red,’ he says to Luke, who’s watching him with an expression of love and pride.

His uncle smiles. ‘As it happens, neither am I.’

+

Ben watches them. He sees himself and Luke walking away into one of the buildings, arms linked, talking, and he knows that now, in this world, they’re going to make peace with each other, and that it will endure. He made the choice. That’s what counts, he thinks. Luke offered him a choice, and in the end, he still knew who he was.

He’ll see his mother and his father again. Both of them alive and whole. He’ll hug them. He’ll have a drink with his father. One day soon, he’ll meet Rey. Perhaps he and Luke will train her together. He will still love her. He might still die for her, but then again, who can say how things will go? They’ll have longer together. All of them will.

He hears the sound of himself laughing at something Luke has said, a hoarse, rusty sounding laugh. Luke’s own laugh.

Another will take his place here in the order of things, the centre of the darkness in the galaxy. Palpatine will make another Kylo Ren, or Snoke will. There’s always someone.

For this Ben, everything will be different. In a few hours, he’ll be home with them, and they will forgive him and it will be okay. He is so well-loved. He is so precious to them. All of this was always possible.

The thought is so hard, so unbearable, that he hardly notices when the light overtakes him once more, pulling him forward, further and further down.


	11. Chapter 11

He finds himself in the desert, on a golden planet with the sun blazing low above him, burning in a clear sky. It must be nearing sundown, but even so he immediately begins to sweat. The sun is relentless and fierce. This is Jakku and if he is here, it is because Rey is here.

  
Ben looks around him. It’s a junk yard of a place, like he remembers it. He seems to be on the outskirts of a kind of town, or at least somewhere that is habited by various motley structures rising up out of the sand. Corrugated iron over simple walls and huts dug out of the earth. He thinks it’s the village where he was before, except there’s no sign of an altercation, not that he can see. There’s certainly no Poe Dameron. He doesn’t think it’s _now_ that it’s all going to happen. Soon, perhaps, but not now.

As Kylo Ren he’d scarcely given any of it a second glance. There was nothing here of value: washed-up people selling washed-up ships. Junk traders, scrap heaps, rusting metal and decay. He’d been too stupid then to know what it was that this wayside planet held.

  
Glinting in the near distance, something catches his eye. It’s just a split second of his attention at first, but he thinks, no, he is sure, as he takes a step towards it, that what he is looking at is –

Under a blanket, barely covered at all, is what appears to be his father’s ship. He walks towards it, his feet struggling against the sand below, not acclimatising to the terrain. Walking here isn’t easy, not without the Force. So many things take so much more effort.

Is that really the Falcon? He hadn’t known it was here. It’s not something he could have sensed as Kylo Ren – people, sure. Ships, not generally. Maybe if he had made a particular effort, but of course, he hadn’t.

What the hell is his father’s ship doing on Jakku? There’s some part of the story that he’s never filled in. Rey was here. The pilot, Poe, was here. The Stormtrooper, FN – what was it? 2187. But was his father here too? Is this where he met Rey?

  
Up close, the ship looks in a mess. It’s rusted and it doesn’t look like it’s been flown in a while. Even for Han’s standards, it could do with some repairs. Ben eyes it professionally. There’s a particularly nasty-looking gash on the right, close to the central window, where it’s been dented badly by someone – or something. As he stoops to examine it, there’s a noise behind him, soft footfall, and he spins around, lightning fast, his hand already at the saber Luke has given to him, ready, always –

Looking back at him, her face utterly, disarmingly, neutral, is Rey.

She’s wearing something Ben’s never seen, not the Jedi white, but a brown outfit, something from – what he supposes must be her work here. She’s young, but no younger than when he first met her. Seeing her makes him feel dizzy, like’s he’s falling too fast or too far. He wants to reach to her and tell her everything. All the things he should have told her when he had the chance, but he was too fucking stupid, and –

‘Hi there,’ she says, a pleasant, social smile on her face. ‘Is this your ship? Because you know, if you want it back, you should probably see Unkar about that.’ She gestures towards a slightly larger structure, the house of someone who apparently has slightly more wealth than is average for Jakku. ‘Unkar Plutt?’

‘Oh,’ Ben says.

She looks at it, doubtful. ‘Not that you’d necessarily want it back, it’s so beaten up.’

‘Oh, the Falcon always looks like this,’ Ben tells her, mostly just to say something, because he just wants to _talk to her_ and not stop. ‘Dad never spends money on cosmetic repairs. This is only a bit worse than usual.’

Her jaw drops.

‘The Falcon?’ she repeats. ‘As in –‘

‘The Millennium Falcon, yes.’

‘The ship that did the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs?’

‘Twelve, I think,’ Ben tells her.

She stares at the ship, and then back to him.

‘No, sorry,’ she says. ‘Backtrack a bit here. When you say Dad…’

‘I’m Ben Solo,’ he says, and he holds out his hand for her to shake, which is one of the strangest things he’s ever done. He wonders if he should tell her that he’s already taken her hand, and offered his own more than once. He wants and doesn’t want to.

She’s so… unguarded. Enthusiastic. He’s seen her fighting, defensive, and afraid; all of which was entirely his own fault, of course. He’s never seen her like this. As she would be if he were her friend and nothing were complicated at all.

‘Rey,’ she says, almost excitedly, shaking his hand. ‘Wow, the Millennium Falcon. Is your dad here too? Or…’

‘No,’ Ben says. ‘At least, I don’t think so. But he’ll turn up, I guess. He always does.’

Deftly, he unlocks the ship, with the manual access code that Han’s never bothered to change and the door creaks to open.

‘Want to look inside?’ he asks her.

She does, it seems, because she’s already half-way inside, looking around her, utterly fearless, like she owns the ship. Ben gestures around.

‘It’s –‘ 

  
What is it, exactly? Dilapidated, mostly. Disused. Slightly odd-smelling in a way that doesn’t make him feel pleasantly nostalgic but more slightly concerned about what exactly is giving off that scent and where that thing is.

‘Yeah,’ Rey says, as she looks around. ‘It’s cool, but there’s a weird smell.’

  
‘I noticed that,’ Ben tells her, but then he smiles. Some things seem so easy now. ‘But don’t worry about that. It’ll just be contraband goods or something. Shall I give you a tour?’

She nods, and he leads her through the ship. As they look around he points things out to her – stupid small things, things he remembers from being a kid, stuff that his parents told him, only some of which might be true. He even shows her the place where once, on a particularly boring journey, he scratched a picture into the wall with a metal pen. It’s still there: two little stick figures, fighting.

One of them is Uncle Luke and the other, he thinks but doesn’t tell her, must be Vader, except he was five when he did it, so things were simpler, and Luke’s apparently in the ascendant, the good guy who’s going to win. Luke always won in his head when he was five. 

Rey smiles when she sees it.

‘Must have been fun, being his kid,’ she says.

‘Sometimes. Not always. He could be unreliable.’

‘I didn’t know my parents,’ she tells him, although of course he already knows that. ‘I think I would have liked to travel around on a ship with them.’

‘I’m sorry that you couldn’t,’ he tells her, because he’s spent a lot of time and effort as Kylo Ren putting pressure on her weak points, and his heart’s not really in doing it again. ‘But where do you wanna go now?’

Rey spins towards him. ‘Go?’

  
‘Sure. Let’s take a test drive,’ he says. ‘It’s been… years since I flew this thing alone. I’d like to.’

‘I don’t know if I should take a test drive with a stranger,’ she says, but she’s laughing. It’s clear the idea isn’t a million miles away from what she wants to do. Her eyes sparkle with the idea.

Ben grins at her. ‘Wouldn’t it be fun, though?’

She laughs.

‘We can go somewhere nearby,’ he suggests. ‘I don’t want to take it on a long ride. I’m not sure how… stable it is anyway. My father has a habit of repairing things in a way that breaks them.’

‘Is that how you persuade people?’ Rey asks. ‘Tell them to fly with you on a ship that might be broken?’

‘Only if I like the person.’

  
A strange expression flickers across her face, just a brief moment.

‘Have we met before?’ she asks him, but then she shakes her head. ‘No, I don’t think so. Maybe you look like someone I know. I can’t quite –‘ She breaks off. ‘Anyway. I’ve never left Jakku. Where do you want to go?’

He thinks about this. There are so many beautiful places in the galaxy. He has been to so many of them. Where’s near? What does it matter? He’ll be with Rey; they’ll be on the Falcon together. Where could they go that’s bad?

‘Let’s go to Arath,’ he suggests. ‘It’s nearby. We can be there in… thirty minutes? Twenty, if the engine’s not completely fucked.’

Rey nods.

‘On the _Falcon_ ,’ she says, like she can’t believe it. ‘Do you think your dad was smuggling something when he lost his ship? It’s been junked here for months.’

‘I’m sure he was.’

Ben moves towards the cockpit and Rey follows, instinctive, calm. As they set up to fly, they form a team so naturally, Ben thinks, that it’s almost stupid. He’s just an echo of himself here, without the Force, living in what is only really a memory. He isn’t bound to her in the same way, and yet even as an echo, it’s obvious that they are bound to each other still.

When they finally take off, the ship lifting as neatly as Ben remembers it always having done, Rey turns to him and her face is wreathed in so broad a smile that Ben finds himself unable, absolutely unable, not to smile back.

‘This is great,’ she tells him, and it’s the most relaxed he’s ever known her. ‘But I wish Unkar hadn’t capped the ignition line. It’s –‘

‘Bad for the hyperdrive,’ Ben finishes and she nods.

‘So,’ she says. ‘What’s on Arath?’

He begins to tell her about the mountains and lakes, the swooping beauty of it, the way that it looks nothing at all like Jakku, but then there’s a strange noise, not from the ship’s engines or mechanics, not so as he thinks, but from somewhere _within_ the ship. He stops describing, and listens, intent. Rey, too.

‘You hear that as well?’

He nods.

‘Close,’ he says, listening. ‘I’d say there’s something a corridor away.

Rey’s expression registers fear. She doesn’t have the Force either, Ben realises, or not _as she knows_. Nothing’s happened to her yet. She’s just a junk scavenger who’s gone on a joy ride of a famous ship with a man she met in the desert.

‘What do you think it would be?’ she asks, sounding worried.

‘No idea.’

He moves towards the door.

‘But whatever it is, I’d rather know.’

The noise is now very obviously closer. Ben hesitates to do it, because it opens up new problems, but there’s nothing for it. He activates his lightsaber and thrumming noise it makes seems to reverberate around the room. Rey gasps, a sharp inhalation. He raises it, and opens the door.

Behind him, he sees that Rey has some sort of pole or staff, something that could double as a weapon. She’s raised it too, instinctive, ready.

Ben looks down the corridor. Nothing that he can see, but there’s that _smell_ again, which –

And then he does see it. The flicker of a long _tongue_. An animal. All at once, he sees what it is.

‘Fuck,’ he says, out loud. ‘Rathtar.’

‘What’s that?’ Rey asks, but she doesn’t have long to wonder, because the noise of their voices is enough. Rey makes a noise, not a scream but a juddery noise of shock as she sees what is.

Now would be a brilliant time for one or both of them to have the Force, Ben thinks, but on the other hand…

‘Catch,’ he tells her, and he throws her the blaster, the one he’s still kept but never used. She does catch it, and raises it, immediate.

‘What’s that thing you have?’ she asks. ‘The sword?’

‘Lightsaber.’

He’d like to say more, but the rathtar is moving very fast indeed, and it seems to be extremely angry. Fuck it. Ben steps back, pulling her with him, and slams the door shut, so there’s metal between them and it.

Outside, they can hear it snarling. Rey’s still staring at the saber, and back to Ben.

‘You’re a Jedi,’ she says, slowly. ‘Aren’t you? _Lightsaber_. That’s something to do with Jedi.’

‘It is, but I’m not a Jedi,’ Ben tells her truthfully. ‘Although I was … trained as one for eleven years.’

The metal of the door thuds, clanking where the beast is apparently bashing its head against the door, trying to break it apart.

‘Did any point in the eleven years cover this sort of thing?’ Rey asks, jerking her head toward the door.

‘Not specifically. But I suppose my uncle would have told me to…’ Ben thinks about this. ‘Probably to just not die.’

‘Good advice.’

‘I’ve tried to follow it.’

‘And to be resourceful,’ Ben adds.

Rey looks around the cockpit.

‘Suppose we could shake the ship,’ she suggests, her tone slightly dubious. ‘Spook it away.’

‘You want to shake the Falcon?’

‘Want, no. But…’

Outside, the noise is getting worse. He thinks, he supposes, he could probably kill it, but without the Force and at close range like this, with so little space to move? With Rey behind him, or next to him? He’s not risk-averse but there are limits to how much he wants to die mauled to death by an animal his father has most likely stolen, smuggled or won in a card game.

What he needs, really, is for _Rey_ to have the Force. For her to be the person she will be two years from now. But what good is that?

‘Fine,’ he tells her. ‘Let’s try it. Quickly.’

The two of them pilot with a skill that belies how violently the ship shakes at their command. They swerve to and fro until Ben almost feels sick with it. _Sorry, Dad_ , he thinks, as he spins it around, swooping low and then pulling the ship back up at a horrible, brutal angle, juddering like he’s never flown before. Rey looks similarly queasy.

Outside, there’s a squelching, squealing noise.

She tips the ship so they’re almost vertical. There’s an angry noise and then the thudding of feet, another squeal. It’s moving off, and he thinks – hopes – it’s injured.

Carefully, Rey sets the ship to something like a normal angle. She breathes out.

‘I can’t hear it,’ she says, relaxing slightly. ‘It’s not right outside.’

‘No,’ Ben says. ‘But it’ll sure as fuck be back. We need to move to better ground. Or fly it back down and get out, either way.’

Rey nods, but her eyes, he notices, are drawn to the saber, a curiously pensive, doubtful expression on her face. She keeps looking at it, like it’s something she knows, or remembers. Ben understands, or he thinks that he does. This is the first time in her life she’s seen a saber. It’s waking something in her up.

It’s the wrong time to tell her and he might be the wrong person to do it, but when is there ever a right time?

‘You can use the Force,’ he tells her. ‘You don’t know it yet, but you can. The saber’s connected to it. That’s what you can sense.’

She laughs, disbelief on her face.

‘Me?’

‘Yes.’  
  
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t think so. I’m just a junk scavenger.’

‘You’re more than that.’

Carefully, he turns out the lightsaber. Ben holds it out to her.

‘You’re going to learn how to use one of these,’ he tells her. ‘One day soon. Take it.’

Her hand reaches for it, taking it into her clenched fingers. Suddenly, she gasps, horrified. The saber falls to the ground, clattering, scorching. Ben steps back, not understanding at first.

Rey recoils, and then he does understand – she’s seeing something. The Force is rising in her, to meet the saber’s memories.

He’s never had to discover what he Force is. He’s always known. It’s just been there, guiding, nudging, whispering, a friend in the darkness and the light. She finds out like this.

She’s breathing hard.

‘It’s okay,’ he tells her.

Her eyes are very wide.

‘There was a … there’s something in a mask,’ she tells him. ‘I’m afraid. I don’t understand. What is that? What did you do to me?’

‘That’s Kylo Ren,’ he tells her, and the words stick in his throat. ‘The man in the mask.’

‘Kylo Ren.’ She repeats the words, as if they are foreign. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Ren means chaos,’ he says. ‘It’s the power of chaos, sacred to an ancient order. He believes in that.’

‘Is he _human_?’

‘Yes.’

‘He…’ Rey shakes her head, as if to clear it. ‘He and I were fighting, with one of those things. His was red. And I was – ‘

‘You were in the woods,’ Ben tells her, his voice gentle. ‘In the snow. He’s wounded. He’s moving towards you.’

‘How can you possibly know that?’

‘I’ve seen the same things,’ he tells her. ‘But it doesn’t have to happen like that, Rey. They’re just one future. Nothing ever has to happen.’

‘You can use the Force,’ she says, slowly, thinking it out. ‘You say you’re not a Jedi, but you must be.’

He shakes his head.

‘I don’t have the Force. Not as this person.’

‘This person,’ she repeats, and she sounds afraid. ‘What other person is there? I don’t understand you.’

‘You don’t have to,’ Ben tells her. She’s afraid, and it’s not of the Rathtar, not even really of Kylo Ren. He reaches out his hand to her and she takes it, instinctive, warm. Her fingers entwine with his.

‘You’re not alone,’ he says. ‘Not against Kylo Ren. Not at any time.’

‘But why does he care about me?’ she says. ‘We were fighting. But what do I have that he wants? What do I matter to him?’

‘He… he wants the coordinates of a planet. But it’s not just that. It’s because you can use the Force.’

‘I don’t know how,’ she says. ‘I don’t –‘

‘He doesn’t have anyone left who can share that part of his world,’ Ben tells her. ‘Not really. But you shouldn’t feel sorry about that. That was his fault.’

‘But who is he?’ she asks again.

‘He’s a former Jedi. He was training with my uncle Luke, but he decided to follow a different path. He fell to the Dark Side, although – he wouldn’t have put it exactly that way.’

‘The Dark Side,’ Rey repeats. ‘That’s… people who aren’t Jedi, then?’

‘Something like that.’

Ben keeps hold of her hand; it is the most natural thing in the world. Being with Rey is the easiest thing he has ever done.

‘He’s going to come to Jakku, isn’t he?’ she says. ‘He’s looking for me.’

‘Not for you. He’s looking for something else. But yes, he’s coming.’

‘When?’

‘I think it’ll be soon,’ he tells her. ‘Perhaps tomorrow night. When he came it was dark, but only just. He saw the last of the dusk.’

‘Came? But he hasn’t been yet.’

‘It’s complicated,’ Ben says and he _knows_ that he has to tell her and every minute that he doesn’t is worse, but he can’t bear to do it, to break the spell.

He just wants more time with her as Ben Solo, without any of the rest of it, and of course it’s selfish and nothing like atoning, but there it is.

‘Did you know him?’ Rey asks. ‘If he trained with your uncle, I mean. Did you train together?’

‘Sort of,’ Ben says. ‘And I knew him extremely well, as well as anyone could.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘Happened?’

‘You said he… fell. Why?’

  
‘It doesn’t matter. I think we should focus more on what we’re going to do. And the Force. Forget about him.’

Rey shakes her head. There’s tension in her.  
  


‘There’s something you’re not saying. What’s really going on here?’

  
‘I –‘

‘I don’t even know you,’ she tells him, and her voice is full of confusion, ‘but I’m so sure we’ve met before. And you take me on the Millennium Falcon, and you show me a lightsaber, and tell me I can use the Force, and I -‘ she shakes her head. ‘I think I _can_. It sounds crazy, but I can feel –‘

  
It’s a lot to process, Ben realises. She’s on a famous ship mid-space with a stranger and a monstrous animal, and the path of her life is suddenly, sharply, rearranging itself. He should have helped her, rather than chasing her round the galaxy trying to make her an empress to the dark.

Did she do this alone before? But she must have had his family, mustn’t she? His mother, his father. His uncle. Now, in this moment, there’s only him. 

‘It’s okay,’ he tells her. ‘The Force isn’t anything to worry about. It’s a good thing. It’ll let you help people, if that’s what you want.’

‘What else would I want?’

  
‘Close your eyes,’ he suggests, thinking about the temple. ‘Sometimes when pada- when students use the Force for the first time, it’s easier if they close their eyes.’

  
She does it.

  
‘And now?’

  
‘See what you can sense. Just look around, without opening your eyes.’

  
He wonders how she senses. He didn’t learn how to do this. He just _could_. Her face is intent, concentrating, and then suddenly, she tenses up, the line of her mouth pulling sharply down. Her eyes snap open.

  
‘Ben?’ she says, alert, fast. ‘That thing’s moving back here. It’s at the other side of the ship, injured, but it’s coming here. We have to go. It’ll break the door if it comes back.’

  
He doesn’t waste time doubting her. Why would he? She’s the strongest person in the galaxy, although she doesn’t know that yet. He just nods, and they move, soft-footed, away from the cockpit, out into the corridor beyond, back to back, defensive.

  
‘You’ll have to keep sensing,’ he tells her. ‘Under normal circumstances, I could do this, but…’

  
‘Why don’t you have your power?’

  
‘Temporary loss,’ he tells her, although whether that’s true, he doesn’t know. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  
He leads them out, towards the long, looping corridors near the engine room, into an alcove with a view on both sides, slightly shielded. His father’s waited here for enemies, Ben knows. He told him about it, when he was little, when he used to like recounting battle memories and Ben used to love to hear them.

  
‘Strategic point, kid,’ Han had said. ‘Best place on the Falc to be.’

  
He was right about that, the adult Ben thinks now. It seems that Rey thinks the same: she sizes it up with an almost professional eye, as if she has been fighting her whole life.

  
‘So now we wait,’ she says, softly.

  
Ben nods. ‘Where is it?’

  
She closes her eyes – which at some point she’ll have to get over, since Jedi who have to close their eyes to do anything usually end up dead (and he would know about that), but it’s early days. She’s reaching out with her thoughts and Ben is intensely frustrated, not by her, but by not being able to do it himself, by not being sure. If he were himself, he could have already resolved this, in a second, a millisecond. A neat blow of the Force, a wave of his hand.

It’s been so long since he had to be afraid of something so mundane as an animal. Has he ever? Mortality’s never struck him as all that relevant.

  
‘Near,’ Rey says, as she opens her eyes. ‘Too near.’

  
His saber’s raised, and the blaster’s in her hand.

  
‘Left,’ she says, her face flickering, like she’s struggling to read something. ‘But oh – I think I – ‘

  
Several things happen at once. The rathtar lurches, violent and roaring, around the left corner, its tongue outstretched, murder on its mind. Rey doesn’t fire. Instead, to Ben’s horror, she drops the blaster to the ground, and instead sharply grabs his hand, raising his arm and her own, her fingers and his outstretched. He understands all at once. He can feel her power, rushing through him, an electric strength, the movement of water, unstoppable, tremendous.

  
He doesn’t have to think about it. He uses the Force, as if it were his own. He can sense _everything_. The nearness of their death; the nearness of their survival. The future. It is his own power; they are a dyad. His power and her power. Her hand, or his own, it doesn’t really matter. His mind, her mind. The rathtar flies backwards, hard.

  
What’s a monster like that to the man who’s been Kylo Ren? Ben curls his fingers, and it’s slammed against the ship’s wall, pinned back. It’s struggling, but it’s not a match for Rey, nor for him. He waves his hand – thank fuck, thank fuck that he can do this again – and the rathtar falls, gasping, to the ground, thrashing and then, finally, still.

  
Rey drops his hand from hers. She looks shocked.

  
‘I –‘ she starts to say. She looks at the body of the rathtar. ‘That was… intense.’

  
‘That was nothing,’ Ben tells her. He stretches.

  
‘Nothing?’

  
‘Not really, no.’

  
‘It felt like something to me,’ Rey tells him. She blinks. ‘I – how did you do that?’

  
‘I learned. But it was your power, not mine. You can do all of that too.’ Ben smiles at her, and she smiles back, rather hesitantly, like she still can’t believe in any of it. ‘You still want to take that trip? I'll tell you more about it on the way.’

  
She nods, her eyes bright, and Ben's heart tightens. He offers her his hand and she takes it, an amused expression on her face as they walk together, back towards the cockpit, hand in hand.

  
Soon he’ll tell her that he’s Kylo Ren. He knows that he’ll have to, and he knows that it’ll hurt when he does. He’ll have to tell her about Poe and the BB unit that she needs to find, and Luke and all of it, otherwise he risks throwing the whole world into disaster. He _will_ tell her.

  
Just not quite yet.


	12. Chapter 12

They’re walking on a little path, at the far edge of the village by the lake. It’s a beautiful, warm evening. Everything here seems so simple. They are alone, except for the cicadas and the birds, swooping low to the shore. It’s a tranquil place, just like he remembers. Nothing more than a few streets built into the mountain side, leading down to the lake front, really. 

They’ve talked a lot, he and Rey. He’s told her the most important things about the Force, about what he learned from Luke that really mattered, whether you were on the light or the dark side. She’s told him things too. About her life, things he hadn’t seen as Kylo Ren. 

‘Show me again,’ Rey says now, impulsive, and she holds out her hands to him. ‘What you can do, I mean. What we can do.’ 

Ben smiles. He takes her hand in his, and the Force is with him again. The world is a kaleidoscope of colour, time, and movement. Dizzying, if you’re not used to it. Utterly familiar to him; the safest thing that there is. 

‘What do you want to do?’ 

‘Anything. Everything.’ 

He shows her. The way to lift things, and the way to set them down. The way to make motion slow, and the way to make it fast. How to move, swift-footed and brave, through the order of the universe and make it bend to your own will, or to let it accompany you on your journey. 

They jump over the rocks of the pebbled beach, into the water, onto algae-covered stones and back. Dangerous, wild jumps that a human could never make unaided, the Force buffeting them forward. It’s nothing for Ben. It’s nothing for Rey. 

He knows that she can do everything he can do. They are perfectly matched. She was born for this and so was he. They close their eyes and jump, and the Force takes them exactly where they need to go. He never lets go of her hand. 

He can see the future, changeable and uncertain, an outline in the fog. It’s jagged and unreal for him, a confused blur. He isn’t here; not really. There is no future as such. His future here is Kylo Ren’s future, and that’s a closed and bolted door as regards divining it with his mind. 

As Ren, he didn’t welcome Jedi sensing him, chasing his destiny with their minds, reading him and his fears. He blocked it all. Reaching him that way would take more strength than Rey has. 

Instead, Ben shows her the things surrounding them in there here and now. The balance of life and death, of movement and stillness. People, everywhere. Their heartbeats. Their intentions and their desires. 

He doesn’t show her darkness. The raw, unquenchable power of it and the way it burns and cauterises. It’s for another day and for another man to show her those things. Maybe in this reality no one ever will. 

Instead, there’s the light. The hope of a better world that so many people carry inside them, secret and wild, the most important thought they have, even if they’ve never voiced it aloud. Good people, those who are kind and decent. The way people feel about each other, sometimes, if they’re very lucky. There’s so much light out there. 

Rey follows his thoughts, moving with him through it. She lingers with him, as he traces the light around them, threaded through the galaxy, woven into everything. Fuck but it’s been a long time that he did this. Years. The sensation is strange to him. He wonders how he managed to avoid it when it’s so _bright_ , so obvious. It’s dizzying. 

There’s a distant white flame, flickering and muted, that he thinks must be Luke on the island, far away. 

_Hi uncle_ , Ben thinks, just softly but Luke doesn’t respond. In his own way, he’s as much of a locked door as his nephew. He doesn’t want people to reach him anymore. 

Rey, next to him, is content. She’s smiling, letting Ben take her around the galaxy, showing her everything he’s ever learned. 

_So many people out there_ , she thinks. _So many good people._

But then there’s a sudden frisson of power, the most recognisable in the universe to him, and Ben knows what is happening. He tries to pull away, to evade her glance, but he’s not quick enough to stop it, not when Rey’s so curious and open, so welcoming - 

Leia is there, looking for him, her face torn, her eyes wide. 

_Ben?_ She says and she doesn’t understand. He tries to look back, to say something, but can’t find the words. He feels nausea rising. He isn’t _ready_ , but if Rey holds the connection open, he can’t - 

_Am I sensing you? Is that really you? Who’s that girl with you?_

_Rey_ , he manages, and Leia jumps at his voice, startled, almost terrified. 

Next to him, Rey doesn’t understand. _Who’s this_ ? _Do you know this woman?_

Leia’s reaching out, trying to find him, to see him better. She just wants to see him again. Ben can feel that; Rey can feel it. It’s obvious. His mother’s one wish, her one thought, is a single blazing point of heat. _I want to see you_ , she’s thinking. _I just want to see you_. 

Rey isn’t Kylo Ren. She doesn’t know how to block terrible things from happening; she has no recourse against pain and no way of blunting the emotions of others so that they cannot hurt her. She just wants to help Leia, because she feels her desperation and her loss. So she opens the connection wide, pouring out her welcome and her empathy, and there Ben is, looking, really looking, at his mother, who is staring back. 

She looks at him, and she begins to cry. It must be an instinct, because the tears just fall, without her saying a word, without her doing a thing. She’s reaching out to him, like she wants to hold him, or just to touch him to know that he’s real. Next to them, Rey stands, awkward and kind, not understanding any of this. 

_Home_ , Leia thinks, abstractedly, but Ben understands. She means, come home, are you coming home, I want you to come home. 

_Not yet_ , he tells her. _Maybe it’s possible, but not today. Not this me._

He opens the connection between them wider, trying to bridge the distance, so he knows that she will hear. 

_I’m sorry_. 

_Ben, you have to stop it. You have to –_

Leia’s voice is cracking. 

_Stop. Please stop_ . _All those people on_ _Jakku_ _you’re going to -_

He drops Rey’s hand, unable to bear it, and all at once his mother disappears. Everything disappears. The Force, the galaxy, the universe. 

It doesn’t make any difference though. Her voice is still ringing in his ears. He can still see her eyes. 

‘What the…’ Rey shakes her head. ‘Who was that woman?’ 

Ben’s distress must be obvious, because Rey’s voice is so soft, so very much softer than he deserves. 

‘I –‘ 

‘Stop what?’ Rey asks. ‘What people on Jakku?’ 

It can’t go on any further than this moment. Around them, everything is so very beautiful. He sees none of it. 

‘Stop being Kylo Ren,’ he tells her. 

Rey’s face falls, slowly, into an expression of disbelief. 

‘What?’ 

‘I was Kylo Ren.’ 

Rey snorts, as if this is a joke, but it is shock that he sees in her eyes. 

‘No you weren’t.’ 

‘Give me your hand,’ he says, and she does. 

The Force is everywhere again. Leia is crying. Luke’s there, more alert, suddenly aware that something has happened. Kylo Ren, even, is there, alive to some unusual disturbance, searching even now for its source, agitated and fearful. He senses something of his mother’s thoughts and he doesn’t like them, not at all. 

‘I’m sorry,’ Ben says, to Rey or to his mother, or anyone, he doesn’t really know. 

He puts some small fraction of his memories into Rey’s mind. The flash of a red, crackling, breaking saber in his hand. The snow where his blood is falling. Rey’s face, the white light in her hand. Her purpose. 

Someone screams: a villager on Jakku, someone she must have known. He had all of them killed. How many of them were people she liked? Friends? Acquaintances? He had never asked or cared. 

Now he’s there on Exegol, and why that memory, he doesn’t know. It just comes up. Everything’s so dark, so obviously overcast with evil. He can taste it in the air. The place is thick with it, and even for him, even after all that he has done, the taste is acrid and sick. He fucking hated it there. 

It’s cold and he’s alone, walking towards the voice. He was afraid, deep down, in that moment. He’s going to kill him. He’s going to kill Rey too, if he must. There can only ever be one person who rules the galaxy, and if that’s a lonely dream, if the thought brings him no pleasure, then so much the worse for the galaxy and for himself. He’s already killed so many. He’s killed Ben Solo. His true purpose is to kill. He is not a human being. He is not, is not. The thought accompanies him like a heartbeat. Not human, not, not. 

He is a monster, and what can monsters do but hunt and kill? With a snarl, he raises his saber. 

Rey gasps, and drops her hand from his. The Force dissipates and he is alone. 

Her face is horrified. For a single, brutal second she doesn’t speak. And then, her composure seems to return. Her hand is steady, and it’s rising. He feels the Force, moving through her, to stop him, to keep him away from her. She learns so quickly. He’s pushed back, away from her. 

‘I’m sorry,’ he tells her again. ‘You don’t need to do that. I’m not Kylo Ren now.’ 

‘But you _were_ ,’ she says. ‘You are.’ 

She’s angry; furious. Betrayed. 

‘How could you not tell me, Ben?’ 

‘I should have told you. I wanted –‘ he breaks off, wary of saying the wrong thing, of fucking this up still further. 

‘Wanted _what_?’ 

‘To not be Kylo Ren,’ he tells her. ‘Just for a little while. To be with you as myself.’ 

She blinks. ‘Why’s that?’ 

‘We know each other better,’ he says, consciously slowing his voice, trying to be calm. ‘As Kylo Ren, I mean. I’ve known you for a couple of years, in my time. And I … regret that none of that time was as myself.’ 

‘We know each other?’ Rey repeats. ‘But you’re trying to kill me. In what sense do we know each other?’ 

‘We’re connected through the Force. We keep seeing each other. We sometimes… fight together. Not exactly on the same side, but together.’ 

‘I see.’ 

Her eyes are cold. 

‘In the end, though, we’re on the same side,’ he adds, urgently, because he wants her to know that too. ‘When it really matters. When I stop being so incredibly stupid.’ 

‘The good side?’ 

He smiles, a little ruefully. ‘Yeah. You could say that.’ 

And then, she sighs. She lowers her hand and she looks at him, and she’s on the verge of tears. She looks almost queasy, and he understands. It’s Kylo Ren’s memories in her head. They make him pretty queasy too these days. 

‘How could you?’ she asks. ‘How could you do any of that?’ 

‘It gave me a lot of power.’ 

She looks at him like she’s never seen him before. 

‘Power? That’s it?’ 

‘Yeah. Pretty much. And I thought it was my destiny.’ 

‘That was your mother,’ she says, slowly. ‘That was Leia Organa. The princess from the stories. She hasn’t seen you in a long time.’ 

‘Nearly six years,’ he tells her, and his voice, even to him, sounds fractured as he says it. ‘Not since year 28, when I destroyed my uncle’s temple and became Kylo Ren.’ 

‘Under the mask,’ she says. ‘That’s really you.’ 

He nods. 

‘You’re the one who’s going to hunt me. Tomorrow, you’re going to come to Jakku.’ 

‘Yes.’ 

Rey’s posture is taut, full of tension. 

‘And how do I stop you?’ 

He shakes his head. ‘You shouldn’t go near me.’ 

‘I _will_ go near you,’ she says, and her tone is steely with resolve. ‘What exactly are you doing on Jakku?’ 

‘I’m looking for member of the Resistance. A pilot called Poe Dameron.’ 

‘Why?’ 

‘He has a droid with part of a map to my uncle’s location. I want that map.’ 

‘To find him so you can kill him?’ 

‘Yes,’ Ben says, ‘although luckily I don’t manage that in the end.’ 

Something in his tone seems to soften Rey, just slightly, because she looks at him then, really looks, and her eyes aren’t anything like as angry as he deserves. 

‘It’s really sad,’ she says. ‘How can you want to kill your own uncle? What the hell happened to you?’ 

‘I don’t know.’ He sighs. ‘I was… training with Luke for many years to become a Jedi. I was chosen. I was special. And I did try, and mostly I liked it, but it wasn’t all that I was. I had darkness in me too.’ 

‘But everyone has darkness in them,’ Rey says, bewildered. ‘That’s just being a person, isn’t it? Does that mean you have to… kill people?’ 

‘Not this kind of darkness,’ Ben tells her. ‘It was more than that.’ 

‘How was it more than that?’ 

‘My grandfather was a very powerful Sith. He fell to the dark too. I felt that he was reborn in me, and that I had to continue his work. And Snoke …’ Ben breaks off, because of course, she doesn’t know who Snoke is. ‘There was another man, or an entity anyway, who began to talk to me, in my head. Another Sith. He promised me a lot of power, and I was tempted. Luke sensed it, and he was afraid of me, with good reason. So I made a choice to leave the light behind, and once I’d made it, I couldn’t go back.’ 

Rey pauses, thinking. 

‘But you were always Ben Solo, deep down?’ 

‘Not really. I mean, I was Ben Solo as well, obviously. But it’s not… I don’t think it works like _deep down_ people are just one thing. It’s all just choices. And I made a lot of choices that Ben Solo wouldn’t have made. So -’ 

He has no idea if she will understand this. He doesn’t know if _he_ really understands it. 

‘You’re not a monster, though,’ she tells him. ‘I could sense your thoughts, in that memory. That cold place you’re walking in, with all the statues. The evil place. You’re afraid of it.’ 

‘Yes.’ 

He doesn’t tell her that that’s where they die. 

‘You think you’re not, but you’re just a person, really. Why don’t you know that?’ 

‘I do know that,’ he says. ‘I just don’t like the idea much.’ 

‘Your mother’s in the Resistance,’ she says, abruptly, and her thoughts must be whirling, as she tries to understand it all. ‘That’s right isn’t it?’ 

‘She leads it.’ 

‘And that pilot, he’s with the Resistance.’ 

‘Yes…’ 

Rey’s thinking fast. 

‘I want to talk to her again,’ she says. ‘We could get a message to the pilot not to come here.’ 

‘He needs to come here. To get the part of the map he’s missing.’ 

‘But _you’ve already seen it_ ,’ she says. ‘Obviously you must have, if you come here to get it.’ 

‘I’ve more than seen it,’ he tells her. ‘I’ve been to the island. I know exactly where it is.’ 

‘So, you could tell me. And your mother and the pilot, and then I can go there, and none of it needs to happen.’ 

‘I’d still come here,’ he tells her. ‘I’d want to find the man who’s keeping the missing piece of the map. He’s… someone I know. Knew, as Ben Solo. I don’t want him alive.’ 

‘We can take him with us,’ Rey suggests. ‘In the Falcon. Then you can get to Jakku but there’ll be nothing there for you.’ 

Should you fuck around with the order of the universe? As the most pure of Jedis, he would take this opportunity to teach Rey that you can’t stop the progress of events once they are in motion; that things must be as they are, and et cetera et cetera. 

He isn’t the purist of the Jedi. He isn’t even really a Jedi at all. Maybe sometimes it’s okay to just take a chance you’re offered to do a bit of good. 

‘Sure,’ Ben says. ‘We could do that.’ 

Rey smiles and it’s the quite possibly the most beautiful thing in the galaxy. 

\+ 

The problem is, once he’s told Rey where Luke is and everything else she needs to know about his uncle, that he’s irascible and complicated and in mourning, one he’s jammed the island’s location into the Falcon (for the second time, no less), once they’ve planned something like a strategy for getting there, he doesn’t fade away. He’d been expecting it, but it hasn’t happened. He remains resolutely solid. 

The good thing about that is that he can spend more time with Rey. Even if she’s mostly quiet, and she doesn’t look much at him, at least she’s still there. 

The bad thing is that the part of the story in which he fortuitously gets to avoid communicating the salient facts to his mother isn’t going to happen. He’s going to have to talk to her again, for the second time in one evening and the second time in years. Ben suspects that his mother’s attitude may be a little less flexible than Rey’s. She might not want him to just casually dispense with the planned order of destiny. 

But Rey’s there, and she seems oddly calm about the whole thing. They’re sitting together, next to each other, in the Falcon, but not yet flying back to Jakku, on the lounge seats where, what feels like a thousand years ago, he used to sit with his father. She’s not relaxed with him, but she doesn’t seem afraid. 

And she offers him her hand. It’s a formality, a business offer and a practical necessity. As he takes it, he senses how much she doesn’t want to be holding his hand. He could read her mind, if he tried, but he doesn’t try. Leave that to Kylo Ren. 

‘Ready?’ she says, and he nods. He must look grim, because Rey’s expression softens, just slightly. 

‘I’ll be with you,’ she tells him. 

Together, they sense. The world around them ebbs and flows with the light and the darkness. She is a quick study. He can feel that she is directing it more this time. It’s her power. Her mind. She is looking for Leia, tracing the memory of her face. Ben helps her. He thinks about his mother. He reaches out, the way that Luke taught him to try to find another Jedi, all those years ago, by focusing on the intentions that make up Leia, the essence of her. The Resistance. Freedom for people to live as they want to live. Justice, rightness, fairness and strength. Kindness, in its way. Those are the things in which Leia deals and knows. That is what her spirit is made from. 

They find her soon enough. She’s looking for them. She’s welcoming the connection to them; seeking it, hungry for it. Her thoughts are all with Ben. The way he looks as the adult she’s never really seen. His face. She’s trying to remember it, to hold onto it. She wants desperately to tell Han, if only he weren’t so far away, if only - 

And then she sees them again 

_Hello_ , Rey thinks. 

There’s confusion. 

_Rey_ , his mother says, the word sounding foreign on her tongue. _Rey who?_

_Just Rey._

_You’re with my son?_

_Yes. But there’s another Ben too_. 

The connection between them is swirling and vague, complicated. In the distance, he thinks he can feel Kylo Ren, a threatening shadow of a danger that approaches. 

_I’m looking for Poe_ _Dameron_ , Ben tells his mother, and his voice makes Leia almost shudder , with relief, with grief, with simple shock. _I’ll hurt him_ _. He doesn’t need to come to_ _Jakku_ _. Rey has the coordinates for Luke._ _In the Falcon._

_Stop him coming_ , Rey adds. 

_Ben_ , Leia thinks, and there’s desperation. _I just –_

Kylo Ren is trying to find them. He can feel some strange, jarring connection between people, only one of whom he knows. His mother and a girl, but not just that. It’s not only a girl that he can sense. There’s something else that he doesn’t understand. Things that he doesn’t understand make him angry. 

_I know_ , Ben tells Leia , although he doesn’t, not really . _It doesn’t matter. How can Rey find you?_

_The Force._ _She’ll find me._

_Can you reach Poe_ _Dameron_ _?_ Rey asks. _Can you stop this?_

_Yes._

_Good_ , Rey says, or thinks, it doesn’t matter which. _I will find you._

Kylo Ren senses her purpose. She’s a light that is white hot and burning. Who is she? Who is she? The thought is pulling him towards them. There’s a sudden oppressiveness in the air, something stifling and unpleasant. Rey is tasting it, and it’s hurting her, sticking in her throat. She gasps for air. 

_You_ , Leia thinks. _Other_. 

_Yes._ Ben doesn’t waste time. They have to go, before Kylo Ren is dragged into this. _It’s not too late_ , he tells his mother. _Never too late._

Leia’s voice wavers, and the connection is failing. Ben tries to keep Kylo Ren away from them; he puts up what sort of a wall he can. It’s taking all three of them a lot of strength to maintain this, and he knows that it’s ending. 

_Love_ , Leia thinks. _Love._

Ben smiles. 

_Love_ , he tells her, distinctly. 

And then the connection fades out, until Leia is a distant light, a star reflected in water, still glowing, still beautiful, but so very far away, reflected, translucent. Kylo Ren, far away himself, senses the rupture. He snarls, frustrated and angry. His hands are gloved, and he’s holding his saber, as if to strike, although at what Ben has no idea. As the connection weakens, he fades too, into a strange, oily blackness, a residue of hatred in Rey’s mind, touching only the very edge of it. 

He and Rey are alone on the Falcon now. Her face is flushed and open, and the Force is with her, so strong. Everything he is; everything his mother is. Connecting to other Jedi leaves traces, and Rey is bound to them now. Their memories, their power, their knowledge. It flows through her. 

She has everything she needs. Except – 

‘It’s not enough,’ she says, and Ben understands. He shakes his head. 

‘Go to Luke,’ he tells her. ‘Go with my parents, like we planned. Leia’s right. She’ll find you.’ 

‘I can’t.’ Rey squares her shoulders, her body defensive. ‘I can’t just fix it for a couple of people and run out on a whole village. If you come here, you’ll kill them, won’t you? No matter what.’ 

He’d love to say that no, he wouldn’t; that he’s not that bad of a person, that he has some self-control, some ability not to have innocent people murdered. It wouldn’t be the truth and Rey understands that. 

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I’ll kill them. Not personally, but I’ll have them killed.’ 

‘I can’t let you do that.’ 

Ben knows that she is right and the knowledge brings him no pleasure. 

‘You know that I’ll try to kill you too?’ 

‘Like you did in the snow. In my vision. You failed then.’ 

‘This is different.’ 

‘You’re not going to kill me, Ben,’ she tells him. ‘I don’t think there’s any chance of that. What will you say to me, when you see me there?’ 

He imagines it, the person he was then. What would have happened if there’d been a young, beautiful unknown Jedi standing there who could hold him back; someone stronger than him. He would have been afraid, subtly but nonetheless afraid. Intrigued. Angry. 

‘I’d want to understand who you were. How you came to exist.’ 

‘Would you want me dead?’ 

‘Not immediately,’ he concedes. ‘Not without understanding you. But on the other hand, if things didn’t go as I wanted or you presented a problem, I’d kill you anyway and not worry about it that much.’ 

‘Right,’ Rey says. 

‘I would have wanted to know how much power you had,’ he tells her. ‘It would have interested me. I never met anyone with real power.’ 

‘Just yourself.’ 

‘Myself didn’t count,’ he tells her, half-smiling. ‘I think I missed it. Being around people who could use the Force, who really understood it. There was just Snoke.’ 

‘The man in your head.’ 

‘He’s not really a man,’ Ben corrects. ‘But yes, my master.’ 

‘He trained you?’ 

‘Sort of,’ Ben tells her. ‘He used my power. It was convenient for him that I went out and did his dirty work. He never left the base.’ 

‘Didn’t that _bother you_?’ Rey asked. ‘You don’t seem like a servile kind of person.’ 

Ben laughs. ‘No, but I always had a master. First Luke, and then Snoke. It’s just what I know. It kind of goes with the… territory.’ 

‘I’m glad you’re free now,’ Rey says and he is surprised, because he’d never thought of it as _free_ before. And then she stands up, stretching. ‘I have to sleep,’ she tells him. ‘Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day.’ 

‘There’s a sleeping compartment past the fresher,’ he tells her. ‘Take that.’ 

She nods, and walks away, but then she turns briefly back. 

‘Thanks for taking me to Arath, Ben,’ she says, her voice gentle. ‘I’m glad I saw it.’ 

And then she does leave, her feet padding soft down the corridor. He hears her opening up the sleeper, the door creaking slightly, just as it always did. The sound of a light flickering on, the faint brr of a neonic heater. 

He doesn’t think he can sleep himself. Instead he paces the Falcon, surrounded by the stars. The ship is drifting, quiet and steady, with Jakku just below. There’s no law against mooring like this and space sleeping, although most people prefer to land if they can. The people who choose to stay in space tend to be the ones who have nothing worth going home for, or don’t have a home at all. 

Somewhere out there, Kylo Ren will be preparing to go to Jakku. He remembers it. The instructions were simple: find the old man, kill him, and take the coordinates that lead to Luke. Kill Luke. 

How in fuck’s name he’d gone along with that, he has no idea. It seems like another person who did those things now. He’d wanted to kill Luke so badly, and he doesn’t even really know why now. Because he had power. Because he was a memory Ben didn’t like; couldn’t cope with. 

His thoughts are jagged. He can’t focus on anything. This mood, when he was Kylo Ren, was dangerous. It was likely to get someone killed. He used to meditate when he felt this way, sometimes in ways that were distinctly un-Snoke approved, to try to calm down. Or he ran someone through with his saber or smashed up a part of his ship or someone else’s; either way. 

Neither option seems useful now. Nothing’s useful now, because nothing is _real_ , not for him. He wants urgently to get out of this trial. Whatever the real world is, however bad it is, at least he’ll be there more than one day ; at least his actions will have consequences _for him_. He’ll be able talk to Rey, who will know him. She won’t be a complete fucking stranger who barely knows what a saber is. She’ll have met him as Kylo Ren, and it won’t break her heart to find out that that’s who he is. 

Ben’s annoyed, tired, and he can’t sleep. If he had the Force, he’s fairly sure he’d be making things shatter into pieces again. He lies down on the soft seating and tries to close his eyes, knowing even as he does that it’s completely pointless. 

His mother is out there, looking for him. His father too, most likely. Kylo Ren is coming to Jakku. Snoke wants Rey to die. Palpatine is there somewhere, somnolent, biding his time. Luke is on that island, brooding and miserable. Leia is looking for him, and she won’t find him until it’s too late. He’s coming to Jakku. Rey doesn’t have a saber. She’s going to stand against Kylo Ren and she’ll die, and he won’t be able to - 

He has a strange memory, the Luke from the temple on the day that he destroyed it flashing in front of his eyes. 

‘Still going?’ Ben had asked him. 

‘Always, kid.’ 

The words seem to reverberate. Always, Luke’s saying. Always, always. 

The thought isn’t really soothing. It’s not anything; just his exhausted brain’s outpouring of nonsense. And yet somehow, it helps. 

‘Don’t worry,’ Luke tells him. ‘You’re doing fine.’ 

Sleep overcomes him like a wave. 

+

He’s coming out of a dream, something about Exegol. He’s walking towards Palpatine, although he isn’t sure yet that that is who he is. It’s cold and awful and everything tastes of death and ash. He’s alone and afraid and – 

He opens his eyes. Rey is standing over him, a slightly concerned expression on her face. Her hand is on his shoulder. 

‘Ben?’ she says. 

He blinks, rapidly, trying to clear the sleep from his eyes; to lift the fog from his brain. 

‘You were shaking,’ she tells him. ‘I think you were having a bad dream. I woke you up.’ 

‘Oh.’ He sits up, rubbing his hand through his hair. Has anyone _ever_ woken him up from a bad dream as an adult? He doesn’t think so, and yet he’s had so many of them. ‘Thanks. I –‘ 

‘I couldn’t really sleep,’ she tells him. She does look a bit fuzzy. ‘My brain’s got too much in it.’ 

‘I get that.’ 

She sits down next to him on the sofa, very close to him. Her body is reassuringly warm. ‘What were you dreaming about?’ 

‘The usual. Bad things from my past. Things that haven’t happened yet for me here.’ 

Rey’s face is kind. ‘You mean Sith things? Kylo Ren things?’ 

‘Yeah. Mostly that.’ 

‘What does my future self think about all that?’ she asks, and he senses the real question in her voice. _Do I fall? Is there something there you’re not telling me about how we know each other?_

Of course the idea has occurred to her. He’s not wrong about it: there’s darkness in her too; there’s an innate understanding of darkness. The only difference between them is that she doesn’t choose it. 

‘Your future self thinks I should stop being Kylo Ren,’ he tells her, clearly. ‘She prefers Ben Solo and she told me that every time I met her. She was quite clear on that point. And I offer you the share of my throne, to rule with me on the Dark Side. You always say no.’ 

He can feel her warmth, the calmness of her presence, radiating and steady. Her hand rests on him. There’s relief in her voice. 

‘I’ll never become a Sith then,’ she says. ‘I don’t even really know what that is, and I already know I don’t want that.’ 

‘Oh, I know. That’s why I keep offering you the throne,’ he tells her, almost tiredly. ‘I know you’ll never accept it.’ 

‘What would you do if I did?’ 

Ben laughs; the idea’s never really occurred to him. ‘No clue. You’d never do it. That’s what I – like about you.’ 

‘Stupid, really,’ Rey says. ‘There are so many better things you could offer me.’ 

‘Like what?’ 

‘Fancy lighsaber swirls,’ she grins and he laughs. ‘How to do that cool jumping trick, which I still don’t really get. And this.’ 

‘This?’ 

‘Yeah.’ She leans into him still further, so her head rests on his shoulder. ‘This. Us being friends. I mean, if you want to be. I think I’d like it if we were. I actually came here to tell you that.’ 

‘I want it,’ he tells her. 

He moves so that her head rests on him more easily, putting his arm around her. It feels like the most natural thing in the world. ‘And I don’t think Kylo Ren knows this one. He doesn’t really do friends.’ 

‘Maybe he’ll learn,’ Rey says. She closes her eyes, just briefly, as they sit there together. ‘Will you help me if I try to teach him?’ 

‘Yes. But I don’t think you need my help with that.’ 

‘He’s still capable of being you,’ she says, and there’s certainty in her tone. ‘He always was.’ 

‘He might not choose it,’ he tells her. ‘I don’t know what it would take for me to choose that.’ 

‘I’m going to find out,’ she says. She takes his hand in her own, and the Force moves within them both, although she doesn’t use it. She just holds his hand, intertwining their fingers. 

‘We’ll fly that guy, Lor San Tekka, out first,’ she says. ‘As soon as it’s light, we drop him off somewhere. Then we’ll wait for you to show up. You can tell me what I need to know.’ 

‘Okay.’ 

For a little while, they stay there together, his arm around her, her hand in his. 

‘I’m sorry I threw you into all this,’ Ben says. ‘When you touched the saber, I mean. It wasn’t my intention.’ 

‘It doesn’t matter. Better to hear from you than someone else.’ 

Ben thinks about his younger self, the one who had to find out about his grandfather from a book; the one who had to march to Luke and demand to be told the things that he had a right to be told. 

‘It’s always better to find out from someone who cares,’ he says. 

‘I wouldn’t know.’ 

‘How’s that?’ 

‘No one’s ever cared before,’ she tells him, and her voice cracks slightly on the words. ‘I’ve never had –‘ 

‘Well, you do now,’ he says, gently. ‘And it doesn’t matter if I fade out, Rey. My family will still care. Leia and Han will always protect you. So will Luke, although he might be an asshole about it at times. It’s who they are.’ 

‘You’re lucky,’ she tells him. ‘Having a family like that.’ 

‘I should have taken better care of them.’ 

‘I’ll take care of them on your behalf,’ she says. ‘If you fade out, and nothing… changes with Kylo Ren.’ 

‘I know,’ he tells her, because he is quite certain that she will. She’s connected to Leia now, and to him. There is no way, ever, that this Rey will do anything other than find Han Solo, Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker. 

‘Do you ever talk to me again?’ she says, and there’s worry in her voice. ‘I mean, about the Force. About stuff. In the future, if you’re him?’ 

‘Sometimes. But not like this.’ 

‘Well, that’s something,’ she says, quietly. ‘I think I’d be sad if I didn’t ever get to talk to you again.’ 

‘Kylo Ren will talk to you,’ he tells her. ‘He’s very lonely. If you ever find a way to talk to him, he’ll probably talk back in the end.’ 

Rey smiles. 

‘But it’ll mostly be offering me a share on his evil throne?’ 

‘Well that and some stuff about murdering people, yeah. My conversational skills were possibly a bit rusty when I first met you. The Dark Side doesn’t lend itself to social skills. It’s mostly shouting and threatening.’ 

She grins, and then she turns to him, suddenly serious. 

Ben?’ she says, and he nods, as if to say _go on_ … 

‘You might disappear at any time, right?’ 

‘Right.’ 

‘So if there’s anything urgent to say, I should say it now.’ 

He blinks, suddenly alarmed. ‘Is there something urgent to say?’ 

‘Sort of,’ she tells him. And then, with a grin, she leans forward and kisses him. 

It turns out that kissing Rey is better when he’s not dying. It turns out that a lot of things are better like this. 

\+ 

He’d thought about fucking her as Kylo Ren, of course he had, but that had mostly been grim and aggressive and his holding her down and her submitting and all that stuff. In those fantasies, she’d been angry, resistant, and he’d broken her down; convinced her, hurt her. He hadn’t minded hurting her. 

She’d gagged on his cock, she’d submitted to it, she’d opened up like a dream, but for all her protests she’d never really been anything except passive. She was just a fantasy, after all. What can fantasies ever do but lie back and take it? 

This Rey isn’t anything at all like that. She leads it all. Her hands, her mouth. The way she fucks is nothing he could ever have imagined, and when she’s done, when they’re both lying there, next to each other, she turns to him and she kisses him in a way that’s almost possessive. 

‘I really wanted to,’ she tells him. ‘And I thought I’d better do it now, just in case you disappeared.’ 

He smiles. 

\+ 

The day passes quickly, and in the end, it’s surprisingly easy to do what they need. Ben tells Rey everything he can think of about Kylo Ren. He tells her about all the things he did, and didn’t do. He tells her about the base, about Snoke, about the Knights, about all of it. He shows her how to resist being choked, and how to hold him off from attacking her, and in this regard he supposes he’s probably an unusually excellent trainer since the threat he’s training her to avoid is himself. 

He tries to prepare her, and all the while a part of him hopes she’ll decide not to stay here. He hopes that she’ll get on the Falcon and fly away and leave Kylo Ren to smash a few buildings to the ground in rage before disappearing into the skies. 

She’ll never do that though, so instead he kisses her as much as he can, savouring the pleasure of it. They fuck again, and her body’s lithe and strong, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of her. A lifetime wouldn’t be enough. 

She makes him laugh. She’s so resolutely present and whole and beautiful. It makes him feel the most alive he’s ever been. It makes him feel unworthy of her, which he is. 

They even play holochess, the first game she’s ever played. She loses horribly, but she doesn’t seem to mind all that much. 

But then, too soon, it’s dusk, and he knows that Kylo Ren’s ship is on its way. Together they walk to the place where he knows he’ll land. Rey’s ready. The Force runs through her like steel, like she’s known it her whole life. Ben’s shown her too much, taught her things too soon, but she’ll need it if she’s going to do what she plans. 

The ship approaches, and she’s still holding his hand. 

‘Showtime, then,’ she says, watching it. 

‘Yeah.’ He kisses her, because he can. ‘Don’t die.’ 

‘I won’t,’ she tells him. 

‘I don’t think I’ll stay around much longer,’ he says. ‘I mean, I don’t think I’ll be able to. If you go on board with him...’ 

‘I’ll see you again,’ Rey says. She sounds so sure, but he has none of her certainty. He wishes he had even a fraction of it. 

Her hand squeezes his. ‘Stop worrying, Ben. He’s still you.’ 

_He_ is a violent killer. 

The ship begins its landing smoothly; Ren is going to get out of it soon, flanked by soldiers, his generals at his command. 

‘You know,’ Rey says, ‘at some stage, you’re going to have to forgive yourself. You’re going to have see yourself the way the rest of us see you.’ 

‘I don’t think I can.’ 

‘Try,’ she tells him, and she leans up on her toes and kisses him, just lightly. ‘And find me. When you get out of this trial thing, I mean. I’ll always want you to find me.’ 

She moves towards the ship, not hurrying, to stand at the door where he will exit. Ben doesn’t follow. They’ve agreed that he won’t. If Kylo Ren sees both of them, if he realises that Ben can’t use the Force – which he will – they have a serious problem on their hands, in that he can kill Ben in a flat second, if he wants to. Ben stays close, though, mingling into the crowd that is gathering at the scene. He watches Rey. He watches the other people. 

He can protect at least some of them this time around. 

The door opens, and he steps out. Rey is waiting. 

‘Hello,’ she says, and there’s a frozen moment where Kylo Ren looks at her, not understanding this, not knowing who she is. He must be sensing the Force in her. He steps closer, leaving the ship. They are directly opposite each other, terrifyingly close. 

‘Who are you?’ His face is concealed by his mask, and his voice echoes. 

Rey stands there, calm. 

‘The thing you’re looking for is gone,’ she tells him. ‘The part of the map.’ 

He snarls. 

‘And so is Poe Dameron.’ 

He reaches out towards her with the Force, trying to choke her, just as Ben knew he would. Rey resists it, and he makes a noise of surprise. 

‘I can use the Force too,’ she tells him. She walks a step towards him, completely fearless. 

‘ _Ben_ ,’ she says, and he actually jumps. ‘Take off your mask.’ 

He doesn’t. 

‘Whoever you are,’ he tells her, ‘this is your last day alive.’ 

She just shrugs. 

‘You told me you’d say that. Or something like it, anyway. And now you’re going to say that I’ll never understand the Force I have the audacity to claim.’ 

Kylo Ren doesn’t answer that. He stretches out his hand, to hurt her, to break her. She’s equal to it. 

‘Well, you’re right,’ she tells him. ‘I don’t understand the Force. Not yet.’ 

She’s holding him back. 

‘I think I get some things,’ she tells him. ‘I get that the Force is powerful. I get that it makes _me_ powerful. But unlike you, I want to use that power to help people.’ 

‘You need a teacher,’ Kylo Ren tells her, even as he’s trying to choke her. 

‘I had one.’ 

‘Who?’ 

‘Ben Solo.’ 

There’s a pause. He lowers his hand, in evident surprise. 

‘Ben Solo is dead,’ Kylo Ren says, but his voice, even though the distorter, is confused. ‘He never met you.’ 

‘He did,’ Rey tells him. ‘I met him here. Just over there, in fact. Standing by his father’s ship. Take off your mask. I can’t talk to you like this.’ 

‘But who _are you_?’ Kylo Ren asks her again. 

Around them, encircling them, are the Stormtroopers he has brought with him. One of them moves to shoot at Rey, instinctive, but Ren waves him away with an irritated strike of his hand, sending him hurtling backwards with a cry. 

‘No one touch the girl,’ he says. The soldiers edge away, wary. 

‘My name’s Rey,’ she tells him. She stares at the metal of his helmet, as if she is looking straight to the person beyond it. ‘And I know who you are already, of course. I like you better when you’re not dressed like that.’ 

‘We haven’t met.’ 

‘We have,’ she tells him, and she smiles. ‘You took me on the Falcon. We went to Arath together. We walked by the lake and you taught me things.’ 

Kylo Ren shakes his head. 

‘And you saw me when I was talking to Leia,’ Rey adds. ‘You sensed me then.’ 

He moves to strike her, hard, but Rey’s equal to it. She holds him off, the effort of the resistance obvious on her face. 

‘Stop doing that,’ she tells him. ‘It’s really annoying.’ 

He snorts, something that might almost be a laugh although it’s bitter and cold. And then, finally, he does take off his mask. The release valve opens with a rush of air and he lifts the mask down so that she can see his face. He blinks. 

‘Hi,’ Rey says. 

Around them, soldiers, noise. 

‘Feel like getting out of here?’ she asks. ‘I’d prefer to talk in private.’ 

‘Sir,’ someone says, a senior officer. ‘Sir, I can’t recommend –‘ 

Since when has Kylo Ren ever listened to recommendations? The officer falls to the ground, choking, before he can even finish his sentence. Rey raises her eyebrows, her distaste obvious. 

‘You’ll come to my ship,’ he tells her. ‘We’ll talk there. You’ll die there.’ 

With his hand, he’s trying to drag her towards him, and although she does move slightly, she’s still resisting. 

‘Stop it, Ben,’ she says, not sounding particularly concerned. ‘I’m not afraid of you.’ 

‘You should be.’ 

‘But I’m not,’ she says again. ‘You’re the one who’s frightened, not me.’ She exhales a sharp out breath, as if she is preparing herself. ‘I will come to your ship. I will talk to you. But I won’t die there. You know that.’ 

She radiates power. Even Ben can sense something of it: she’s blazing brilliant and bright. She’s him, and she’s Leia, and she’s herself. She moves towards Kylo Ren, and then she does the strangest and bravest thing: she holds out her hand for him to take. 

Ren stares at it, not understanding. 

‘I don’t know the way on your ship,’ Rey says, as if this were obvious. ‘You’ll have to show me.’ 

He takes it; of course he does. He always does and he always will. As their fingers meet, there’s a visible shock that runs through both of them, just as there was when it happened to Ben too, except Snoke’s not writing the story this time. 

Ben doesn’t know what they see, but he wonders if it’s the same for this Kylo Ren, more or less, as it was for him: Rey on the throne, her teeth bared, her face dark and cold, queen of the kingdom of the dead and the dying. 

Although perhaps not. Perhaps he sees himself; the memories of him that Rey has, the idea of him that she has, which is much too good and much too kind. 

Whatever it is, it makes Kylo Ren turn to her, looking directly at her. 

‘What’s your last name?’ he asks her. ‘Rey _what?_ ’ 

‘No idea,’ she tells him. ‘I never knew my parents.’ 

‘You’re looking for them.’ 

‘And yours are looking for you’ she tells him. ‘We could talk about that.’ 

Around them, an army swarms. Neither Kylo Ren nor Rey seems to notice. 

‘You need a saber,’ he tells her. ‘Why don’t you have one?’ 

‘If you’re planning to murder me, what does it matter?’ Rey asks. ‘Isn’t it better if I don’t have one?’ 

‘How can you be trained but not have a saber? Luke would never -’ 

‘I’ve never met your uncle. And you only had one saber,’ she tells him, interrupting. ‘Unfortunately. You let me borrow it, but I couldn’t keep it. I didn’t want to.’ 

‘We haven’t met.’ 

‘We _have_ ,’ she tells him. ‘You showed me around the Falcon. You showed me your dad’s collection of holo westerns. Some of them looked really… bad.’ 

‘Ben Solo is dead.’ 

‘Well,’ Rey says, ‘I don’t think so. And I don’t suppose _you’ve_ got a spare saber, have you? Not in red.’ 

‘No.’ 

‘We’ll have to get one then,’ she tells him. ‘I think I’d like one. Guess you can’t buy them in a shop? Is it all sacred quest stuff?’ 

‘Mostly,’ Ren says, and there’s an edge of what might be amusement in his voice although it’s jagged. ‘They can be made. I had mine made.’ 

‘Why’s it so… crackly?’ Rey says, looking it doubtfully. 

‘The crystal’s unstable.’ 

‘Ah, there’s a crystal,’ she says, ‘of course there is. Some of this stuff’s like a holo comic, you know. Completely unbelievable.’ 

‘Yeah,’ Kylo Ren says. ‘I know what you mean.’ 

And then he walks with her, directly back into the ship that he’s just left. He doesn’t seem interested in anything except her. 

As they walk further, where Ben can’t follow them, up and into the ship, the strangest thing is that they seem completely at ease with each other. He’s afraid for Rey, of course he is. She’s walking onto an enemy ship with a volatile man, on a path which almost certainly leads to Snoke. She’s with him at his worst, his most dangerous. Everything suggests she shouldn’t do it. 

And yet, somehow, he can’t help but wonder if maybe she’ll be all right after all. The Force is with her. Kylo Ren won’t kill her, not until he knows more about her and what she means when she says she knows him. He might hurt her. He’ll probably try, sooner or later. 

But somewhere on that ship, Ben knows, there is a Stormtrooper who’s just waiting for the right moment to help someone. FN-2187, wasn’t it? He doesn’t need the Force to know that these things just fall into place sometimes. Isn’t it obvious that if there’s no Poe Dameron on the ship, FN-2187 will help the girl instead? That’s just how it’ll be. 

Somewhere across the galaxy, his mother knows that the coordinates for Luke are in the Falcon. Even if Rey doesn’t reach her, which is unlikely, then Han will find the ship. He always does. And Leia will find Han. Things will fall into the right order, somehow or other. 

He doesn’t mind as much, this time, as he feels himself fading away from the scene. Rey’s there. She’s the one who survives all of this. If she’s there with him, then there’s hope. The story that began on Jakku is being re-written. He doesn't have to kill Han. He doesn't have to do any of it, not if she is there. It's only for him that those things have to happen now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I got quite into imagining the future unfolding for this Rey and this Ben/Kylo, and I'm sort of midway through turning that into a side fic - so if you like this, you might want to keep your eyes open for that too as well as future updates of this story, of course. Thanks always for the lovely comments :)


	13. Chapter 13

Everything resets smoothly, as he now knows it must. The world around him rearranges itself into metal, grey, silver. There are familiar noises. Military, engines, the hum of industry. It doesn’t take him long to realise that he is on board the Star Destroyer. Fuck.

He, Kylo Ren, must be on this ship somewhere. Ben can’t be sure of the date, but he can be fairly sure of that – there’d be no other reason for him to be here. Has he met Rey yet? Probably. These jumps always move him forward, and the last place he was marked the beginning of his knowing Rey. She’ll always be here now in these places he travels to, somewhere. The thought is reassuring. He holds onto it.

As he looks around, he sees that there’s a simple-looking control system in the room although fuck knows where he is, somewhere on one of the maintenance decks or somewhere, and he reads the year and date on the set-timer, winking bright and clear.

It’s the early afternoon. It’s spring, or it would be on Coruscant, but out here in space, there are no seasons. It’s the day he kills his father.

Fuck but of course it is. What other day would it be? Han Solo is going to arrive here soon, or he already has, and he, his former self, is going to kill him, and the world is going to shatter apart. After today, nothing will ever be the same.

He has to stop it. He is still unsure whether what he’s seeing is real, memory, or something between the two, but it’s enough to know that his actions have consequences. He can change things in _these_ worlds. He has to believe that, or else he’ll go insane. He can feel it. Each time he moves, he creates a new world through a new set of decisions that spiral into the creation of another reality.

Somewhere else, unfolding in another moment of another time and world, Rey and Kylo Ren are aboard that ship. She’s asking him to help her to have a lightsaber made. He’s so sure of that. If he tries, he can almost see them there, walking onto the ship. He can sense Rey’s energy, the power of her presence. He can sense his own curiosity towards her.

There were so many times when it was preventable, he thinks. That’s what this suffering is about: the knowledge that there was _never_ a time when it was too late. There was always a way back and there are, or could be or could have been, a million, billion worlds, spiralling out from every decision he ever made or didn’t make.

The thought is abstract, but pared down to its simple truth, it’s actually very easy. In this world, he’s going to make sure he doesn’t kill Han Solo. That’s the decision.

+

He finds him easily. Everything about this day is mapped out in his head in eerily close, fixated detail, as if he can only bear to look at it piece by piece. He never puts the whole together. It’s a series of memories, distinct, separated from each other. He dreams about it that way too, replaying it moment by moment. Strange fragments of it come to his mind all the time, rising up unbidden. There’s nothing he can do about it. There’s nothing he wants to do about it.

He knows the way that Han must have approached him today. He knows exactly where the Falcon was parked. He knows the last things his father saw, the last places he walked. He’s traced his steps with his mind a thousand times, trailing his father on his journey here.

So in the end, finding him takes Ben almost no effort at all. This was his ship. He knows it as well as he knows anything. He meets a few Stormtroopers on the way, but what’s that to him when he’s got a saber? They recognise him as Kylo Ren, although they don’t understand his clothes or possibly even his general expression. Ben’s fairly sure that he’s not pulling his weight as far as intense scowling is going these days. Still, some of them just let him pass by with a nod. Others demur, but not for long.

Nothing matters except getting to his father. Nothing. One corridor, another. A turn left, past the entrance to the loader. A nod from the guard. Another turn, taken at a run this time, and there is Han. It’s the strangest thing to see him. The ghost that haunts his dreams, and he’s just walking, confident, calm, still alive. He’s looking around him, watchful, but he doesn’t seem worried. Ben doesn’t think his father was ever worried in his life.

He’s walking forwards. In a few corridors’ time, he’ll see Kylo Ren and it’ll all be too late, unless –

‘Hi,’ Ben says, and he steps out of the shadows, directly in front of him.

Han blinks. He stares at him, not quite understanding.

‘Hi?’

Ben shrugs. He doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to say. He saw his father just a couple of days ago, and he can’t find a better way to start a new conversation with this version of him.

‘Yeah. Hi.’

Han seems to gather himself, adjusting to this strange development. ‘Okay. Not quite the Sith-y dramatic opening I was expecting but yeah, guess it works. Hi.’

‘We should talk,’ Ben tells him. ‘I sensed you were here.’

‘Yeah. I want that.’ His father’s voice is careful. ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while.’

‘Somewhere else,’ Ben says, trying not to make it sound too urgent. He doesn’t want to spook him away. He _has to_ keep him from seeing Kylo Ren. ‘Somewhere quieter. This is too exposed.’

He doesn’t wait for his father’s response before stepping back, leading them away from Kylo Ren, away from all of it. He takes him down near the secondary engines, not too far but somewhere he doesn’t think is likely to get a lot of passing traffic. His father follows, blaster discretely in his hand.

‘This is fine,’ Ben says, stopping at the spot he’d planned. Han looks around, surveying the location, and then bringing his eyes back to Ben’s face.

‘Yeah, for a Starkiller Base, I guess this is a great spot. What’s going on here, Ben? You say we have to talk somewhere that’s not exposed. Exposed to who, exactly? Isn’t this your ship?’

‘I –‘

‘No mask?’ Han says, looking him up and down. His expression is very sad. ‘I thought you didn’t go out without it these days. And aren’t you supposed to be in black?’

Ben wants to reach out to him and hug him. To tell him all the things he can’t tell him.

‘I have no need of my mask at present,’ he says, making his voice as much like Kylo Ren as he can bear.

Han raises his eyebrows. ‘You don’t need it at any time. It doesn’t suit you and I don’t know why you wear it.’

Ben says nothing. He only looks at him. His father’s face is the same as in every nightmare he’s had, in every memory, in every single moment in which he thinks about this day.

‘Come home,’ Han says. ‘Whatever this is, just come home.’

So easily, Ben _could_ come home with him. He could just walk a few corridors back to the Falcon, and he and his father could sit it out. They could wait for Rey. Wait for the base to blown up. There’ll be more time, time for all of it, to get to know each other, to stop the worst things from happening. The thought is tempting.

But Kylo Ren will still exist. He’ll still need _his_ Rey. Ben has his own Rey, waiting for him somewhere.

‘No,’ he says. ‘I can’t come home. It’s too late.’

Han sighs. ‘That is so much kriffshit.’

‘Dad,’ Ben says, and Han’s face just _crumples._ It’s unbearable.

‘Dad,’ he says again. He thinks he might be on the verge of crying. ‘Just get out of here. I – I’ll – if you stay here, I’ll hurt you. Please.’

Han puts out his hand, and of course, he touches Ben’s face, just the same as he did, as he does in the memory Ben replayed a thousand times, the thing that chases his dreams, catching him, always, always catching him. He looks at him, like he’s learning his son’s face by heart, like he’s the most precious thing he’s ever seen.

Except this time, Ben pulls him into a hug. Han still smells of the Falcon and the tobacco he says he doesn’t smoke and of Wookie fur, and Ben hugs him and hugs him, and Han holds him while he cries.

‘Please,’ he says, into his dad’s shoulder. ‘Please don’t stay here. It’s not safe. I’m not safe.’

Han shakes his head. He strokes his son’s back, just like he were still a little kid, gentle, fatherly and kind.

‘You’ve got to come home,’ he says. ‘How can I leave you here like this?’

‘No,’ Ben says again. He lets go of his father. Looks at him. ‘Go in the Falcon with Rey and Chewie. I’m not going to come home. There are things I have to do here first.’

‘Like what?’ Han says disbelievingly. ‘What can you possibly need to do that is more important than getting out of here?’

‘I can stop things from happening,’ Ben says. ‘Bad things.’

‘But the worst thing is you being here,’ Han says, bewildered, and it’s hopeless. He’s never going to leave this alone. He loves Ben too much.

If his father goes down there, to where Kylo Ren is, he will kill him. Ben is sure of that. His state of mind was so fractured. If he sees Han, there’s only one way it’s going to go. There aren’t any magic words that his father can use to change that.

He _has to_ stop it.

‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ he says. ‘I can’t really explain this. I –‘

He punches him, very hard. Instinctively he uses the Force, as if he still had it, but even without it, he’s very strong. Han staggers. Ben punches him again. He really doesn’t want to do it. His father’s blood is on his hands.

Han falls to the ground. Ben catches him, gently, breaking his fall.

‘Sorry,’ he says again. ‘I’m sorry.’

Han’s body is warm and alive and that’s what matters. He carries him towards the Falcon, running. The ship still looks like it always did. It’s not that long since Ben saw it with Rey: only a matter of weeks stands between that day when he landed on Jakku and now, really. Ben carries him inside, and Han’s already stirring, protesting even as they make it through the door. He tries to summon the Force, because Luke says he still has it, he just can’t sense it in the same way, and he trusts Luke to know something like that.

He can still feel _something_ , and this is the most important thing he has to do. He isn’t doing it only for himself. He’s doing it for his father and his other self who is going to make a terrible mistake today, and Rey and Leia and Luke and all the people whose lives he has intersected with, and will intersect with, who will be hurt by him, whose lives he will come to hurt in the mad lashing of pain and guilt if he runs Han Solo through with a lightsaber later today.

 _I really need this_ , he thinks, although he has limited confidence that anyone is really listening. _Be with me. Be with me. I’ll take this instead._

He moves his hand over his father’s face and it’s slow, like his power’s been frozen, but – Han passes out.

Carefully, Ben sets him to rest on the bed. He feels winded, like he’s just moved a building with the Force, not some trivial thing like that. His head aches and his body’s shaking with the effort. He breathes in. Fuck. His father’s face is smeared with blood where Ben has most likely broken his nose but he’s out completely cold.

He runs to the medkit and takes what he needs. There’s little time, but enough for this. He wipes the blood away from Han’s face, tries to repair the bone with the medi-fix; thinks he does it all right.

‘Sorry,’ he says again. He strokes his father’s hair, very gently. Takes a look at him for the last time, he thinks. From here on out, if he continues spiralling into the future, into his nearer past, he’ll be dead in every reality Ben ever sees, including his own.

‘Goodbye, Dad,’ he tells him, although his father’s in no state to respond, and then he walks to the cockpit and – once again – enters the location for Luke into the grid. 

He closes the Falcon door, locking it carefully. He strokes the side of the ship, because he supposes this might be the last time he sees this too. It’s a good ship. And that’s all the time for sentiment that he has. He runs, hard, towards Rey, where she must be. She was in the gallery above when Kylo Ren walked there, so -

He can feel her, he realises. The ability is rusty and vague, nothing like it should be, but he can distinctly feel the Force, softly ebbing around her, like a distant light. She’s close.

He gets through the main doors, and she’s there, with the former Stormtrooper and Chewie. They’re walking towards the place –

‘Hey,’ he says, rushing to them. Not the smoothest opening, but there’s just no time. They turn around, whirling. The stormtrooper’s blaster is in his hand, raised at him. Rey’s weapon too. She’s so young, so untrained. She doesn’t even know what the Force is yet.

He’s going to fight her, in an hour, and she’s going to gash his face with that saber, the one he can sense in the stormtrooper’s pocket, the one that’s now sheathed and harmless. Chewie growls at him, a warning and a message of disgust, which is heart-breaking in another way that he can’t even process, but he’s not got time to explain to any of them. At least he’s cautiously optimistic that the wookie doesn’t _usually_ shoot people with the bowcaster when they’re just standing there.

‘Ren,’ Rey says, face puzzled, displeased. ‘But… What the –‘

‘Dad’s injured,’ he says urgently. Her face creases with confusion. All three of them stare at him.

‘I can’t explain,’ he says. ‘But you have to get back to the Falcon. Right now. And –‘ he thinks about it. ‘I’ll try to tell you later. I’m sorry about – _everything_. Going inside your head like that.’

‘Rey –‘ The man says. His blaster is still raised.

‘You can shoot me if you want,’ Ben tells him. ‘I deserve it. Just get back to the Falcon quickly. You can still detonate. Whatever you did, whatever you’re going to do here to bring it down. You can still _do it_.’

‘You hurt him,’ Rey says, tone very cold, and he knows that she means Han. ‘Why?’

‘I can’t explain anything,’ Ben says. Chewie’s looking at him and his eyes glint with intelligence. He has the horrible feeling that the wookie knows _exactly_ what is going on, that he isn’t Kylo Ren, and if he gives the game away –

‘You’re able to use the Force,’ he tells her. ‘You don’t really know what it is yet, but you’ve sensed it. It’s the thing you feel when you hold that saber. The voices in your head. You need to go to my uncle Luke. He trains people. Leia will tell you what to do.’

‘Sorry? Who’s Luke? Who’s Leia?’

‘Leia’s my mother. Luke’s my uncle. And I promise you, Rey, that my father is on the Falcon and you need to get to him and get out of here. I put the coordinates for Luke into the command grid.’

‘But what about you?’ she says, sounding confused. ‘Not that I want you to live, but if you know about our plan, aren’t _you_ getting out of here? You know we’re going to detonate the explosives? This ship isn’t going to survive.’

He shrugs. ‘I’ll be fine. I can use the Force too. It can…’ He doesn’t know he’s supposed to summarise it. ‘I know I don’t die here. Neither do you.’

Somewhere below, near the bridge across the pit, Kylo Ren is approaching. He’s looking for his father. He knows he’s here and the voices inside of him are angry and desperate. There’s a storm cloud brewing inside of him.

‘Use the saber,’ he tells her, hurriedly. ‘It belongs to you.’

She looks him up and down, and her eyes are wide and confused. She doesn’t understand, not yet. She isn’t _his_ Rey.

He unfastens his own lightsaber, the one he borrowed from Luke.

‘Watch,’ he says. ‘I won’t hurt you.’

She watches, as he activates it. He spins it, lightly. It responds to his touch, the Force ebbing slightly in him, just below the surface.

‘Like this,’ he says, and he swings it easily. ‘The Force moves through you with it. It’s not a sword. Don’t treat it like one.’

She takes her own saber from Finn, who’s watching too, holding it outstretched for her. Activates it. She mimics his gesture, and he sees her grandfather in her; his strength and power.

‘That’s right,’ he says.

He thinks he can sense something, the connection she is making to the Force. It is so strong, that even he, just an echo of the person she is really connected to here, can feel it. It runs through him. Kylo Ren must be able to feel it tenfold, wherever he is.

Ben swings towards her, and she parries. Their sabers lock.

‘Don’t be afraid of the Force,’ he tells her. ‘Don’t be afraid of me. Or yourself. We’ll meet again, Rey. It’s – things won’t be the same. I might not be the same but you should know that I’ll help you, when it really matters. I’ll always help you in the end.’

He lowers his saber and she does the same. She’s looking at him like he’s either going to kill her or protect her, but she can’t decide which of the two it is.

He wishes he had more time to tell her.

‘Run now,’ he tells them. ‘Detonate the second you’re there.’

And he himself runs, forward into the base, to where he knows that Kylo Ren is waiting for someone to kill. He hears Finn and Rey and Chewie behind him, running the other way, towards the Falcon and Han and escape.

He supposes they’ll get out. They can still destroy the base. This time, he thinks, he might even be on it. He’s not entirely sure that Kylo Ren’ll make it out alive now, not if he doesn’t give chase and pursue her to those snowy woods, his body bleeding out where Chewie has shot him. None of that is going to happen now – but what is?

There’s no knowing. He walks calmly towards himself.

The door swings open. He’s walking the same path that Han Solo walked, and there, stepping out of the shadows, is himself.

‘Ben,’ he says and Kylo Ren starts, even behind his mask. He lets his father speak through him. ‘Take off that mask. You don’t need it.’

Kylo Ren turns to him, saber outstretched.

‘Who are you?’ he says, although he knows the answer. ‘Where is Han Solo?’

Ben doesn’t answer that. He just lets Kylo Ren drag him towards him, the Force surrounding him. He doesn’t even try to resist as the air buffers him, pulling him forwards, forwards.

‘Jedi trick,’ Kylo Ren says, looking at him. And then he does take off his mask, and his face is Ben’s own. They stare at each other, and it’s as if this were a mirror, but then Ren moves and Ben doesn’t.

‘You can’t even use the Force,’ Ren says, dismissively. ‘What a weak projection.’ 

His hand tightens and Ben feels the air rushing out of his lungs, as he’s choked. He gasps and struggles, but he can’t get enough air. No one has ever escaped Kylo Ren like this, he knows. No one, not ever.

‘Send my regards to Luke,’ Kylo Ren says, holding on and Ben’s going to die here, he knows, at his own hand. He’s died before. What’s one more death?

Han’s safe. Even if he dies now, in this reality, Rey will have a family – his family. She will be the person that he was meant to be. He closes his eyes. It’s okay, he thinks. It’s just a rearrangement of being.

Then there’s a sudden crash, and that’s Chewie having detonated the explosives. Ren’s face flickers and he lets Ben drop to the ground with a thud, no longer choking. He gasps in air, more and more.

‘What was that?’ Ren says. He looks around him, sensing.

‘Detonation,’ Ben says, gasping. His voice is very hoarse. ‘They blew a hole to get to the oscillator.’

He’s lifted to his feet by Kylo Ren, slamming into him with the Force.

‘What are you?’ he says. ‘You’re not from Luke.’

There’s a siren ringing ahead, a warning to evacuate. Kylo Ren makes a noise of frustration.

‘Whatever,’ he says, not sounding very much like Supreme Leader, although of course he isn’t, not yet. ‘This is just a trick.’

He lifts Ben with the force, dragging him alongside as they move out of the ship, away into the hangar. He grimaces, waves his hand, and Ben – who knows what’s going to happen, who can’t stop it, and who doesn’t entirely miss the irony of it – passes out.

+

He wakes up on a ship, a drone by the looks of it. Ren has boarded something, apparently, and fled the Starkiller Base, thoughtfully bringing Ben along for the ride. He supposes he wants to torture him. Lovely, he thinks. What he really wanted most was to spend some quality time with himself on the day he murdered his own father.

‘Ben?’ he says, looking around. He’s never been knocked out by the Force before – it wasn’t a trick that Luke ever practised or taught him, needless to say. It leaves his head slightly foggy.

He appears to be on the ground, where his body has obviously been dumped. He stands up and is dimly aware that he’s in quite a lot of pain. Kylo Ren has apparently thrown him unconscious to the floor, which is nice. 

He’s still got his lightsaber, at least.

‘That’s not my name,’ Kylo Ren says, emerging, expression furious and cold. ‘And it’s not yours either.’

He looks awful, Ben thinks. Compared to the last Kylo Ren he saw up close, the one with Luke a few years ago, he’s … degraded. He’s been with Snoke more than six years at this point. Luke’s temple is starting to feel like a lifetime ago, but in some other way, every day it’s getting harder to block it out. He remembers it all.

The voices in his head, the whispers, the shouts and cries. The way in his dreams, he was holding a white lightsaber than ran blood-red and the blood would spill onto his hands and he’d wake up and his fingers would be stained, so he couldn’t tell what was real and what was the dream. His mother in his dreams, her face pale and afraid. The shadows, everywhere. Shadows and light, rippling through him, over and over.

All of it was complicated and sad, and it never did anything except to get worse.

‘It _is_ my name,’ Ben says. He has no idea what to do. He supposes he’ll die on this ship, once Kylo Ren has tortured him for information. He knows what he can do to prisoners. He’s done it all.

He thinks about Han. The way he was throughout Ben’s life: his easy, warm nature and his bravery. His normal fucked-up-ness. No Jedi sanctimony, he thinks. Nothing holy and spiritual. It’s way too late for all that now and besides, how, in any case, can he deliver such testimony?

He needs his father, and while Ben can’t be that, he can try to bring something of his spirit to him, at least. If he he’s going to die, he can die that way. It’s surely one of the better ways to go.

‘I know you’re going to kill me,’ he tells Ren, who is jamming some command onto the control panel, presumably a location input or a murder command, because he did very little else. ‘But before you do, I wanted to tell you that you’re…’

He thinks.

‘A complete idiot,’ he says, and there is a horrifying second before Kylo Ren turns to him, face stone cold.

‘Seriously,’ Ben says, glaring at him. He _doesn’t care_ , he thinks. Han’s safe. He’s on the Falcon with Rey, so whatever happens here, he’s done the right thing. He’s made it right. ‘You are acting like such a shit.’

Kylo Ren looks on. He raises his hand, fury in his expression; a cold, calm rage that burns white hot. A disbelief.

‘Go home,’ Ben tells him. ‘Kick Snoke out of your head. Help Luke to train Rey. Forget about this. It’s what you want.’

Ben feels the Force gathering around him, the air tightening to choke the life out of him. He gasps in as much oxygen he can and says, ‘You’re just too fucking stubborn to admit all this was a mistake.’

Kylo Ren loosens the pressure just slightly, like he’s reflecting, deciding exactly how to kill Ben. Perhaps choking isn’t good enough.

‘I know you’re conflicted,’ Ben adds, still wheezing. ‘I know it’s really hard. The dreams, and the voices, and all of it. But you have _got to_ stop talking to that fucking mask like a lunatic. It isn’t him talking back. You do know that? When he tells you all that stuff, that is _not_ Anakin talking to you, kissing your ass about your glorious destiny.’

Kylo Ren stares.

‘Who is it then?’ he says.

Ben almost rolls his eyes. ‘Don’t you know?’

‘Snoke,’ he says.

‘Well, yeah.’ He’s not being choked now, which he supposes is good. ‘And the … entity who made Snoke. But you’ll have to find out about that later.’

Kylo Ren’s face is pensive and troubled.

‘You’re from the future,’ he says. ‘You are the future.’

‘One future,’ Ben tells him. ‘Not the only one that’s possible.’

‘So it does happen.’ He sounds simply curious. ‘At some point, I become Ben Solo.’

‘You are already.’

‘It’s not that simple,’ Kylo Ren tells him, and he doesn’t seem that interested in torturing Ben after all. ‘I’m not like them.’

Ben knows exactly what he means. Of course he does.

‘No,’ he says. ‘But you’re not like _them_ either.’

‘I can’t stand it,’ Kylo Ren says. ‘I’m being torn apart.’

‘I know,’ Ben tells him. ‘But this isn’t the way to fix it.’ He gestures around to the ship, Kylo Ren’s clothes, the blood-red flash of his lightsaber that hasn’t yet killed Han Solo and perhaps never will. ‘This is wrong.’

‘You’ve got to find another way,’ he tells him, and the answer seems simple after all. ‘You don’t have to be the head of the First Order or the Jedi. You can do something else. Whatever you want.’

Kylo Ren shakes his head. ‘Destiny…’

‘It’s not real,’ Ben says. ‘You write your own. What if your destiny’s not… connected to the Force? What if it’s more like Dad’s?’

The idea hasn’t really occurred to him before, but once he’s said it, it has appeal.

‘A smuggler,’ Kylo Ren says dismissively. ‘Continually on the run, continually breaking the law.’

‘Happy,’ Ben corrects. ‘Not a bad person, but not a holy one either. You don’t have to live like Uncle Luke, some ascetic meditating himself to death in the middle of nowhere.’

‘The voices in my head tell me so many things,’ Kylo Ren says, and it sounds like he’s talking to himself more than to Ben, although they are one and the same. ‘You’re a new voice, but I don’t know who to trust.’

By which, Ben concludes that unfortunately or fortunately, his former self is leaning towards the idea that Ben is somehow a projection of his splintered psyche. It says something about his state of mind, really, that he could even entertain that as a plausible idea.

‘You know where Luke is,’ Kylo Ren adds, thoughtfully. His voice turns dark. ‘This is a way to end the Jedi…’

‘Don’t,’ Ben interrupts. ‘Do not kill your own uncle, for fuck’s sake. And your mother is a Jedi too. Are you going to kill her? And _you’re_ one, so you’re going to have to kill yourself at that.’

‘I’m _not_ ,’ Kylo Ren says and Ben shrugs.

‘After eleven years, I guess you kind of are,’ he tells him. ‘I think I probably am, at least a bit. You can’t undo it. I can’t not remember all those things I learned and neither can you.’

Ben sighs. ‘You want to kill Luke, and Leia and Dad, and everyone. You want to murder your whole family. And you seriously think this is the right path?’

‘Luke has influenced you,’ Kylo Ren says, which is sort of hilarious because –

‘Well, yeah,’ Ben says. ‘He raised me. He trained me. He lived _in our house_ , all through our childhood. No shit he influenced me.’

‘He sought to harm you,’ Kylo Ren says. ‘He lifted his saber to you, and yet you defend him.’

‘Fuck’s sake,’ Ben says. ‘I’m not defending him. He made a shitty choice and he knows that. He’s an annoying guy at times. But… you can make a bad choice and still be a good person. He loves you. They all do. I don’t know why, but they do.’

The ship careens slightly. Ben raises his eyebrow.

‘What’s with that? Is there a fault?’

Kylo Ren shakes his head. He looks angry, like he’s going to smash something or scream or cry, anything to lessen the pressure. ‘I – ‘

The ship is distinctly swaying. Ah, he realises. That’s _him_ doing that, the state of his emotions, the way he feels pouring out.

‘Calm down,’ Ben says, almost annoyed with himself. ‘Why are you getting like this?’

Above them, the ship’s frame trembles. A stray box falls from a shelf, tumbling down to the ground.

‘Stop,’ he says, and he sounds like himself to Luke, except he doesn’t have the Force and he isn’t powerful enough to stop him that way.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ he says to Kylo Ren. ‘Do not explode this ship and kill us because your ego can’t cope with having made a wrong decision. What’s the matter with you?’

He moves towards him, and although he’s afraid of himself, he knows what he has to do. He reaches out his hands to him, puts his hands on Kylo Ren’s arms, not to hold him back, but just to touch him, to try to calm him down. No one ever touched him.

‘It’s never too late,’ Ben says, almost soothingly, and he sounds like everyone who ever talked to him, except he’d never believed them until it _was_ too late.

And then he stretches out his arm and, deftly, types in the call code for the first ship whose channel number he ever learned. Kylo Ren’s face curls, furious. He knows what code that is too. Of course he does. He moves, his hand lifting to end the call, or to end Ben, or himself, who knows which, but then -

‘Solo?’ a familiar voice says. ‘Falcon 897-8A32.’

‘Hi, Dad,’ Ben says abruptly, and Kylo Ren’s face drops into a sudden, almost paralysed despair. He wants it so much, Ben thinks. He wants to go back to this life more than he can bear, and he _can_. The impossibly ridiculous thing is that he can. ‘Just calling to say sorry about punching you.’

‘Yeah.’ Han’s voice crackles over the static. ‘What the hell, when did learn to punch so hard? Where are you? The whole base exploded, kid. You okay?’

‘Oh, I’m fine,’ Ben tells him. ‘I’m err, on a drone, spending some time with myself. I did the things I had to do.’

‘Great.’ Han’s voice is intensely sarcastic. ‘So you come over like the whole First Order are your enemies, then you smash my nose up, then you fix it, then you tell the girl to blow up your base, and now you’re just ringing for a chat? Tell me again how much clarity this whole Sith thing has brought to your state of mind, kid. You’re all over the place.’

Kylo Ren is just listening, like his father’s voice is the most wonderful sound he has ever heard. There’s the shadow of a smile there, some vague memory of one, spreading across his features. Ben looks at him, encouraging, gentle with himself.

He opens his mouth, and the words sound croaky, like he’s having to pull them out of a very deep, far away place where they’re almost nothing at all now, almost dust and ash. But then -

‘I’m not a Sith,’ he says.

There’s a pause, another crackle of static.

‘Glad to hear it,’ Han says, and he laughs, just a little snorting laugh. ‘I mean, sure, leaving aside today, there’s the black clothes and the mask, and the blood-coloured sword and the whole _thing_ you’ve got going on. But apart from that…’

‘I –‘ Kylo Ren says. The words come so slowly, like he’s dragging them with him. ‘Dad, I -’

‘I’m teasing you, kid,’ Han says, apparently oblivious to this struggle. ‘You remember how people do that? I don’t care if you wear black clothes and a mask. Bit weird, but not weirder than a lot of other stuff in our lives.’

‘We don’t share a life,’ Kylo Ren says, but he doesn’t sound exactly happy about it. ‘I’m not Ben Solo.’

Another crackle of static. Then Han’s voice, a little sadder but by no means distraught. ‘Fine,’ he says. ’Then I’ll share a life with Kylo Ren. It’s not a name I would have picked for my kid, but hey, what can you do. If that means I get to talk to you… then Kylo it is.’

He pauses.

‘Guess I like it,’ he says. ‘Kylo. Sounds like a singer or something. Not sure your mother takes the same view but perhaps it’s better that we don’t ask her.’

‘I’m not happy, Dad,’ Kylo Ren says suddenly, as if the idea is only just occurring to him, or can only now be voiced, for the first time. ‘I’m really not happy.’

‘With having a name that your mother doesn’t like?’ Han says, lightly. ‘I can imagine. She’s a scary woman when she’s crossed.’ There’s a second’s pause. ‘And I know you’re not happy,’ he goes on, ‘and I think you know what I think about it.’

‘You think I should come home.’

‘Well, yeah.’ Han is patient. ‘I think you shouldn’t be running around a kriffing Starkiller Base in a mask, if I’m honest. But Ben – _Kylo_ – you don’t have to come home. You can go wherever you want, kid. Just…’

He breaks off, unable to say what is obvious.

‘I know,’ Ren says. ‘You think I don’t know?’

‘Well…’ Han’s voice fades in and out. ‘I think you know, but I’m not sure you really get…the magnitude of it. We don’t want you to come home to be the King of the Jedi, you know. Maybe your mother, a bit, with the Resistance and all. She always wants fighters. But even she’d rather it were _anything_ else than what you’re doing now.’

‘I don’t belong in the Resistance,’ Kylo Ren says.

There’s a rusty laugh from Han.

‘Neither do I. I’m a smuggler. And look what happened there.’

‘I’m not your kid,’ Ren tells him, but his voice sounds empty.

‘Yes you are,’ Han says simply. ‘You are my kid, and I love you. You can call yourself whatever you want. You’re still my kid, you don’t get out of it that way.’

There’s a pause before he goes on.

‘And thanks for the coordinates, by the way. How did you get those?’

Kylo Ren blinks.

‘Coordinates for what?’

‘Luke…’ Han says, sounding bewildered. ‘You input them onto the Falcon. More than that. You jammed the grid. Guess we’re not going anywhere else, so thanks for that…’

‘I don’t know where he is,’ Ren says.

‘Yeah, beg to differ. What the hell’s going on with you?’ Han asks, and his tone expresses genuine concern. ‘Is this like an amnesia thing? Does this happen if you go Dark Side-y?’

Ren turns to glare at Ben, acknowledging him as real for the first time since he began talking to Han. His expression is judgmental, but Ben only shrugs, as if to say, _so what_.

‘And by the way, do me a favour?’ Han says, filling the silence. ‘I’ve got this girl on board, and I’m pretty sure she’s a Jedi. She’s got that look that you all have, like the weight of the world’s going to come down on her any second.’

Ren turns his attention back to his father’s voice. ‘The scavenger.’

‘Yeah, Rey.’

‘What about her?’

‘She said you talked to her,’ Han says, ‘about the Force. Showed her how to hold a saber, and said she had to go to Luke. Can I put her on the line for a second?’

Kylo Ren shrugs. He seems resigned to it. There’s a crackle, and then a brief moment of silence in which he completely ignores Ben again, as if he were nothing more than a projection. Perhaps that is what he thinks he is. He is clearly lost in the voices in his head. He seems disturbed, but not necessarily volatile.

And then, with a hum of radio noise breaking in, there’s Rey.

‘Ben?’ she says. ‘Is that you? Han told me you were on comms. I need to ask you something about the… _Force_. You said I could feel it.’

‘Did I?’ he says, and his tone’s tinged with irony so he doesn’t sound much like Kylo Ren.

‘You told me not to be afraid of you,’ she adds, and he turns to Ben with a look of wry amusement.

‘Maybe you should be,’ he tells her.

Rey’s voice rings clear. ‘I’m not. I need your help, Ben. I think I really need it.’

Kylo Ren doesn’t bother to correct her on her use of his name, Ben notices. He just waits.

‘There’s this voice in my head,’ she says. ‘Ever since we got back into the Falcon, there’s been this… I don’t know. _Thing_. He told me that I have a destiny. His voice is strange.’

Kylo Ren’s face flickers. Is that anxiety, Ben thinks? Whether it’s for himself, for the potential loss of his position, or for Rey herself, he can’t be sure.

‘Perhaps you do have a destiny,’ he says. ‘People can use the Force differently. The voice in your head is just one way.’

‘He told me that you’d help me,’ she says. ‘You could train me. That I shouldn’t go to Luke Skywalker, because he would let me down. That only you could offer me real power.’

‘Ah,’ Kylo Ren says. ‘Did he now?’

‘I don’t understand,’ Rey says. ‘Han tells me to go to Luke; that his power is real and that he won’t let me down. And I don’t… I don’t like the voice. He scares me. I feel like he’s hunting me.’

‘His name is Snoke,’ Ren tells her. ‘He’s sensing your power, Rey. I can sense it too. Luke, will be able to do it as well, if he hasn’t already.’

‘I don’t want him in my head,’ she says. ‘I don’t know how to get him out. I think I might be going crazy.’

Kylo Ren’s face is impassive.

‘Is he there now?’

‘I can feel it at the back of my head, like…’

‘An itch,’ Kylo Ren suggests, and she mms her assent.

‘He’s evil,’ she says, and her tone is very clear. ‘He’s a monster. I can feel it. What am I supposed to do, Ben?’

‘That’s not my name,’ Kylo Ren does, finally, tell her, but he doesn’t say it with any great conviction. ‘And Snoke is a …wise master.’

‘You don’t believe that,’ Rey says. ‘How could you? Is he in your head too? He sounds like a … snake. He’s poison. He makes me feel so tired.’

Kylo Ren’s face expresses something then, some sharp and nameless grief, before he seals it away.

‘He has a lot of power,’ he says. ‘You could have it too.’

‘I don’t want that kind of power,’ Rey says. ‘I just want him out of my head. Don’t you want that too?’

Kylo Ren doesn’t answer. He seems to be thinking about something else.

‘What exactly did Snoke say?’ he asks.

‘He…’ Rey’s voice crackles. ‘He said _your time has arisen, young Jedi. Your time to find out the truth about your power.’_

This line is pretty fucking familiar, Ben thinks. He said exactly the same thing, word for word, to him, all those years ago.

‘And then he said that _everyone would tell me they understood me, but only he could truly help me to understand for myself._ ’

Kylo Ren snorts, just softly. The idea that is occurring to Ben is obviously occurring to him too.

‘ _Skywalker will seek to limit your power_ ,’ he says, his voice rich with irony and even perhaps distaste. ‘ _I will only allow it to grow, so that it can set you free.’_

There’s a pause.

‘Yes,’ Rey says, slightly surprised. ‘It was exactly that.’

‘Guess he doesn’t change his lines much,’ Ren says, more to himself than to her. ‘You’d think he might have worked on them a bit.’

‘He said it to you too.’

‘A long time ago,’ Kylo Ren tells her.

‘I’m afraid.’

‘So was I,’ he says, slowly. The idea appears to be interesting to him, as if he’s never seen it before, or he’s forgotten it. ‘I think I was afraid too.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I –‘ Kylo Ren is clearly trying to remember this. Accessing the memories isn’t easy for him; it’s easier for Ben, and he suspects that Snoke has something to do with that. ‘At first, I ignored him. I focused on the Light and hoped to overcome him. But over time he showed me that … he could offer me things I wanted. I began to welcome his guidance.’

‘I don’t want the things he has.’

‘No,’ Kylo Ren says, and he sounds suddenly far, far more human. ‘I don’t suppose you do.’

‘And I don’t understand. He’s got you, hasn’t he? What does he want me for anyway? What can I do than you can’t do better?’

‘He suspects that I feel a call to the Light,’ Ren tells her. ‘He – he sensed weakness in me today. He sensed a change in events. He prefers to have you as a - backup option in case I fall.’

‘It wouldn’t be falling, Ben,’ Rey says, her tone gentle. ‘It’d be coming home.’

‘The only way to get him out of your head is to kill him,’ Ren says, ignoring this. ‘And you’re not strong enough to do that.’

There’s a pause. 

‘You are,’ Rey tells him. ‘We could be together.’ 

‘You’re untrained.’ 

‘Not if you train me,’ she says. ‘Or your uncle does.’ 

‘My uncle will let you down,’ Ren says, almost automatically. 

  
‘And you punched your dad in the face,’ she says. ‘You tortured Poe. You hurt me.’

‘Two of the three, anyway,’ Kylo Ren says, and Ben thinks that the ironic amusement is definitely a good sign, because as Ren he was never amused, or warm, or able to see a funny side to anything. Those feelings were locked down, far away under Snoke’s training, under the suppression of everything that he was and should have been.

‘But I still want you to help me,’ Rey continues. ‘And I don’t know why. I don’t believe you’re like Snoke. You’re not like that voice in my head.’

‘In some ways I am.’

‘You’re confused,’ she says. ‘I could sense it. When I saw you earlier, it was like you were a completely different person.’

‘You could say that I was,’ Kylo Ren says and he almost, almost smiles. ‘But I’m – nothing is clear. I feel so much -’

‘Conflict,’ Rey suggests, kindly, her tone open. ‘You feel conflict.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re not alone with it,’ she tells him. ‘Maybe you had to try to fight Snoke alone, when he was in your head like he’s in mine. But you’re not alone now. Not with me.’

This seems to bring Kylo Ren at least to some kind of decision.

‘There _are_ other techniques,’ he tells her, and the words seem to be almost painful to him. Ben, listening, knows exactly what those techniques are. ‘To … control Snoke’s voice in your head. Not to remove, but to control.’ 

‘Tell me.’ 

‘You have to use the Force,’ he tells her. ‘It’s … you need to focus on the Light. You have to think about good people you know. Not –‘ he shakes his head, like he can hardly say it aloud. ‘They have to be really good people.’

  
‘Like who?’

‘I think about Luke,’ he says shortly, which is… _incredible_ , Ben thinks, that he’d say it, that he could voice this thought to anyone. ‘Although I don’t think he’d want me to do that. If you can do it correctly, Snoke feels further away. I seldom need this technique but I have found it…advantageous at times.’

  
‘ _Ben_ ,’ Rey says, and there’s a smile in her voice, but Ren shakes his head, irritated; distracted. He interrupts her.   
  


‘Can you get my father back? I need to speak with him.’

There’s a murmur in the background, and a series of beeps, a mechanical whir of an engine that Ben recognises as the Falcon; a noise he would have known anywhere. Something sounds a bit off, he thinks, and it seems that his other self has had the same thought, because he’s listening intensely.

‘Hey kid,’ Han says, easily, and it takes Ben back to being eleven years old, when things were all so much simpler.

‘You have to find Luke,’ Kylo Ren tells him, abruptly, so much so he almost spits the words out; it must be costing him something, Ben thinks. He’s fighting himself to say it. ‘Take her there. He can help her. Snoke’s trying to get to her. He wants her power. He thinks that he’s losing me and that she can be a substitute.’

‘Yeah, I figured.’ Han sighs. ‘You do know that Luke’s holed up in some bastard no place though? I’m not sure he’s accepting students these days. Hell, I’m not sure if he’s even got a lightsaber anymore. He’s as fucked up as you are, no offense.’

‘He’ll accept her,’ Kylo Ren says, and Ben knows that his other self has sensed it, because he sounds so sure. ‘She’s very powerful.’

‘He’d accept you too, you know,’ Han says. ‘Probably after some pretty robust discussion, but hey. He still loves you.’

‘He shouldn’t.’

Han’s laugh comes through over the radio. ‘Yeah, but he does anyway, kid.’

‘I ruined his life,’ Kylo Ren says.

‘Nah.’ Han sounds light, his tone free of sharp edges. ‘I don’t think you ruined his life. You broke something, but it’s not too late to try to fix things together. Luke needs you around. This Rey needs you around too.’ Then Han laughs, as if the idea has suddenly struck him. ‘And I approve, by the way. Not that you seem to need my approval.’

‘Approve?’

‘Of Rey,’ Han says. ‘She’s a great pilot. And she’s gonna be another Jedi superstar. She’s got a Jedi face.’

‘Jedi face?’ Kylo Ren repeats, and his lip does flicker, almost imperceptibly, upwards as if he’s supressing, or trying to find, a smile.

‘It’s this _mmm_ look,’ Han expands. ‘Like you’ve taken Astravian space dust and just seen the vortex of reality and it’s … got you annoyed and serious but also kinda spaced out.’

‘I don’t see it,’ Ren says.

‘It’s a thing,’ Han tells him. ‘But maybe only non-Jedi can see the Jedi face. So I suppose that rules you out, Kylo…’

‘No, don’t call me that,’ Kylo Ren says. He sound distressed. ‘I don’t like –‘

‘No Kylo Ren?’ Han says. 

‘No, I –‘

‘Kriff,’ Han says, exasperated but there’s affection there. ‘You really are all over the place. You want me to call you Ben or what? Or have you got some other name in mind?’

Kylo Ren doesn’t answer this; he’s thinking, thinking. Ben sees in himself the same ghost that he always knew was there, the person he is, the old memories, the Jedi rising up, Snoke fading. Possibilities shifting, the mechanisms of fate subtly grinding into a new gear.

‘Dad?’ Ren says eventually, and Han hmms a relaxed acknowledgement.

‘There’s something wrong with the coolant reactor,’ he says. ‘I can hear the Falcon over the comms. It’s making that weird humming noise again.’

‘Yeah,’ Han says. ‘I know. I’ll sort it out when I get to Luke.’ He pauses. ‘You want to join us? I know you’ve got your sacred destiny to think about and all, but I could use a hand with the repairs.’

Kylo Ren’s face blanches. ‘I –‘

‘You’re my son,’ Han says, and he sounds very certain. ‘I want you to come help me fix up the Falcon. I know that you want to see the girl, and maybe you want to see me too. Fuck knows, I’m starting to suspect you might even want to see Luke. So come over. You can tell me about what’s going with you while Luke does his magic act for Rey. All right? Then we can sort this crap out.’

‘It’s not a magic act,’ Kylo Ren says, almost rote. But then, like he’s come to a final decision, he grins and the smile lifts years off him and a weight from his shoulders. He shifts his voice to make it sound more like Luke’s. ‘It’s _the power of everything being connected beyond anything that could ever be imagined._ ’

Han laughs. ‘Right yeah. Is that the line?’

‘Usually,’ Kylo Ren says, except he’s Ben Solo really now. ‘He sometimes varies it a bit.’

‘Are you coming then?’ Han says. ‘Should I pre-warn Luke so that he can go into an almighty shit fit about it?’

‘Oh, he knows I’m coming,’ Ben says tiredly, sounding resigned. ‘He can sense me. He’s been sensing me for the last hour at least.’

‘Which you?’ Han says, almost sardonic. 

‘Which one do you think?’

‘I hope he senses my son,’ Han says, and for a moment, there’s a crack in his tone, an edge to his voice. ‘I really hope.’

‘Yeah,’ Ben says. ‘I think he’s actually trying to talk to me through the Force. He seems pretty agitated. So I can talk to him myself.’

‘Okay,’ Han says, easily. ‘Don’t get into a fight. Try to do the whole… Light thing for fuck’s sake. I know it’s not 100% you, but just give it your best.’

Ben smiles again.

‘Great pitch, Dad,’ he says. ‘One of the better ones I’ve heard.’

‘Yeah,’ Han says. There’s a smile in his voice too. ‘I’ll send you the coordinates.’ There’s the noise of beeping and clicking. ‘I’m signing off for a second,’ he adds. ‘Need to brief the others and get some food. Call me back if you want. I mean it. Call me back.’

‘All right,’ Ben says, casually. The line clicks off and, still utterly ignoring his older self as if he’s nothing more than a projection of his mind, he closes his eyes. He sighs.

‘Luke?’ he says, to the empty air. ‘You know, you’re not exactly subtle. I can sense you.’

There’s a pause.

‘I know that,’ he says, and he must be talking to him. ‘Of course I know. Why are you talking to me like I don’t know anything?’

There’s a long silence. Ben suspects that his uncle is unleashing a fair amount of pent-up rage and grief and doubt about precisely why he thinks Kylo Ren doesn’t know anything at all. But whatever he says, it seems that eventually, he runs it to its end because Ben, this version of him, only sighs.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘But on the other hand, Luke, if you think I ought to atone the only way I can do that is by actually… _doing it_.’

There’s another long pause, and Kylo Ren, the man who was once Kylo Ren, smiles.

‘Don’t you already know, Luke? You always know everything before it happens.’ 

And then he laughs, just a brief, tiny laugh.

‘Yes, I’m bringing a girl,’ he says. ‘Can’t you sense her?’

There’s a silence, as Luke must be saying something, and whatever it is, seems to amuse Ben in some way. He doesn’t seem particularly distressed, to say that only a short time ago he was shaking a spaceship apart with his bad temper.

‘I’ll be there,’ he tells his uncle.

Another pause.

‘Yes, with Dad.’

Ben watches himself, and he’s aware of that same feeling, that flickering, fading light that’s dragging him away from this world and into another.

He knows that where he’s going can only get worse. Han is dead. Rey despises him, and now she’s running, running, across the galaxy to get to Luke, who is furious and alone, and his mother is grief-struck, and soon, very soon, he’s going to end Snoke and take the throne –

The light resets itself. He blinks, and is neither surprised nor in the least bit happy to find himself standing, and not for the first time, on Ahch-To, where it’s pissing with rain, cold, and generally miserable. It’s night and there’s a faint firelight coming from one of the huts. With a smile, he notices that the Falcon, of course, is parked up, not too far ahead, which means she is here, and this – in the timeline – this must be before he kills Snoke, but not long before. 

He sighs. He is so tired, he thinks. It’s been days of this with precious little sleep. He misses his father’s voice already. He misses Luke. He misses Leia. All of them seem so far away, further now than ever.

He’s sure he’s supposed to go to the hut and talk to Luke – _again –_ but he can’t bear it. He just can’t keep doing this, forever, making things right, every time harder than the last. But then, he sees suddenly that Luke’s there, in the distance, running towards another hut. He looks angry and Ben knows better exactly what and when this is.

He watches as Luke approaches, and hears a noise, a thudding separation of the Force. Rey, her voice high and angry. He can’t hear what they’re saying, but he sees Rey, giving chase, and pushing Luke down to the ground hard with her staff. He gulps back shock. Had they fought then? He didn’t know that.

He makes out the words _Kylo Ren_ , and her tone is accusatory. The fight between them. A lightsaber, flying to her, straight into her hand, brilliant and bright. He can’t hear; doesn’t dare approach. But then he realises: she’s going to leave. She’ll fly straight to him, to Kylo Ren. Of course she will.

They’ve just connected through the Force, and she believes that he, Kylo Ren, can be saved. That’s the light in her eyes, the source of her argument with Luke.

He thinks about it, and it’s not much of a decision. He doesn’t want to be here on this island. She’ll take the Falcon, and if he’s quick –

He’s already moving towards the ship. There’s no real decision to make. If this is the wrong one, then so what? The door opens for him, just as it always has and just as it always will. He slips inside and waits quietly for Rey.

Now, sure enough, there’s the noise of her footsteps, metal clanking. Movement. Doors locking to close. She sounds furious and determined.

He waits until they’ve burned atmo. No point startling her, he thinks, not while she’s close to the island. The last thing he wants is for her to turn back and deposit him here with his uncle. In this time, he thinks, Luke might be a bit less receptive to throwing him a welcome party. 

So he waits, and once he hears the calming, steady thrum of the engine settling, he steps out and moves towards her. He knows where she’ll be and that’s exactly where she is: pacing the main deck, expression very pensive.

She’s got the saber, but she doesn’t know how to use it yet – he can see that. She’s testing it out wary of it. He approaches her cautiously.

‘Rey,’ he says.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm sorry that this chapter took an appallingly long time and will understand if you have all forgotten about this fic and no one reads this update!
> 
> Life very much got in the way (not for bad reasons - we just moved house and had a lot of work to do on it, I began a new job, and as you might have heard, there's also been a tiny bit of a life-shattering global pandemic going around lately...) The second part of this is nearly finished, so I promise it won't take weeks, and I'd say there aren't that many more chapters to go before the whole thing is finished! Hope everyone is okay.

She spins around, lightning fast, angry, a wild animal cornered. He holds up his hands. He’s getting good at this gesture, he thinks. Too good.

Her face registers surprise as she looks at him. The saber is in her hand, activated. 

‘I’m not Kylo Ren,’ he tells her, and he supposes the fact that he’s not trying to kill her and that he’s dressed in an outfit that includes almost no black, probably helps to cement the fact that he definitely is _not_ Kylo Ren, because she lowers her saber, just a fraction and stares at him, eyes very wide. 

‘I’m from the future, sort of,’ he tells her. ‘On a temporary visit. My name’s Ben Solo. I mean, that’s the name I’m using now. It’s my real name.’ 

‘I...’ she stares at him. ‘But I just saw you. You were…You didn’t look like this.’ 

‘No,’ he agrees. He smiles, and her eyes widen still further. ‘I’m trying a new look. Less black.’ 

‘The future?’ she repeats. ‘Is that a Jedi thing then? To be able to come from the future?’ 

‘Not really,’ Ben tells her. ‘It’s complicated. But you have to believe that I’m not going hurt you. I don’t have the Force. I’m not the same person as Kylo Ren, not exactly.’ 

She twirls the light saber, pensively, as if she can’t trust it. Jabs it forward, both hands on the hilt. 

‘Not like that,’ he says. ‘Didn’t Luke show you how to use it?’ 

She shakes her head. ‘I don’t want to talk about him.’ 

Ben approaches her, and she lets him. He can see the rise and fall of her breathing. She’s taut, tense and full of fear, he thinks. He doesn’t need the Force to know what she feels. Agitated, purposeful. Angry. Afraid of him, in both of his current incarnations. Compelled to help him. Doubting, always, the Force, the mechanisms behind all of this; her place in it all. The galaxy is a vast and impossible place and she’s just a scavenger from Jakku.

‘Do you want me to teach you?’ he offers. 

‘Without the Force?’ 

‘People can saber fight without it,’ he tells her. ‘It’s just like any other weapon in some ways.’

She shakes her head. ‘We already fought. In the snow, after -’

It seems that she can’t go on, because he voice catches, fading away to nothing but a tremulous little noise.

‘I remember.’

She looks at him, and her eyes are so very clear. He remembers the look she had that night, when he held her hand; when she offered hers. It’s burned into his memory. It’s the same look now. It’s the same night. 

A noise startles them both. There’s a heavy clanking sound from below, what sounds to him like the engine room. Instinctively, still, he senses with the Force, but of course, he can’t find anything there to hold onto. There’s a vague feeling, something like an old memory, something soft and safe and complicated, but that might be because he’s aboard the Falcon, which is nothing but memory for him.

But then Rey smiles, just a half smile.

‘I forgot,’ she says, sounding surprised. ‘How could I? Chewie’s been down there for ages.’

‘Chewie?’ Ben repeats. ‘Is he … on board?’

She nods. ‘He helped me to pilot to get here. Since we arrived he’s been mostly down there though. He says there’s something wrong with the engine, but I don’t understand what it is. Seems fine to me.’

‘I didn’t sense him,’ Ben says, although as soon as he’s said it, he realises how stupid the comment is. He can’t sense anything at all, let alone his father’s best friend and partner-in-crime.

‘I thought you couldn’t use the Force?’ Rey asks, puzzled. ‘How could you sense him?’

‘Just habit to say it that way,’ he tells her. ‘I mean, I didn’t hear him. And he didn’t hear me coming in, apparently, which is -’

_Unlikely_ , he adds, although he doesn’t say it aloud. Unless something’s radically changed with Chewie’s sense of hearing, he must have heard Ben coming in before Rey and recognised that it was a different set of footsteps, a different smell. Why didn’t he come up?

‘Well, he’s pretty busy down there,’ she says, doubtfully. ‘Although he’s supposed to be guarding…‘

They look at each other, and a shared understanding crosses their faces. Without a word, they turn and walk together, down to the engine room.

‘You told me that I wasn’t alone,’ Rey tells him as they walk the familiar corridor and he knows she means in the conversation she’s just had with Kylo Ren, ‘but I don’t feel that way. Luke and I … fought too. I don’t understand why he did what he did. I don’t understand any of this.’ 

This is, he realises, a continuation of the conversation that’s burning in her mind. The connection between them was so strong. She is talking, urgently, to the man she’s just left behind in that cold, damp hut, the one who feels like some kind of promise in a world that’s dark and lonely. He is not that man, but here, with Rey now, he has no choice but to become him again.

‘What don’t you understand?’ 

‘He raised his saber to you,’ she says. ‘He said that he sensed darkness in you, and he – it was just a shadow that passed.’ 

‘Yeah,’ Ben tells her. ‘He was right, Rey. There was darkness in me. There is, now. Where you’re going, to Kylo Ren. It won’t be what you expect.’ 

‘I have to try,’ she says. ‘You’re not going to stop me.’ 

He smiles. ‘Probably not.’

Rey’s gaze is steady and strong. 

‘I saw you,’ she tells him. ‘When I … touched your hand just now. I saw you.’ 

‘You saw a possible future,’ he says, carefully. ‘But I saw something too, and it was a different possible future. The Force can show you things that might happen, but they don’t always come true; not like you expect.’ 

‘But it can come true.’ 

‘Yeah, and … also not,’ he tells her. ‘You can’t trust it in that way. Reading it doesn’t work like that.’

He smiles at her, and it seems to disarm her in some way, because she looks almost afraid, startled by it. 

‘You’re Han’s son,’ she says, like this is something she can’t believe, a thought that is only just occurring to her. ‘I’ve never seen it before, but you look like him.’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘I don’t understand you either,’ she tells him. ‘I don’t understand why you did it, Ben. I just _don’t_. You killed him.’ 

He keeps his voice very steady. ‘Yes.’ 

‘Do you even _regret it_?’ she asks, and there’s pain in the question, a lashing of it, whipping at both of them. Her need for his regret; her need for things to be other than they are. 

‘I regret it,’ he tells her. ‘I’d do anything to take it back. But the Kylo Ren you’re flying this ship to, he doesn’t regret it in the … same way that I do. You have to understand that.’ 

‘I think he does,’ she says. Her voice is reflective. ‘I think he’s haunted by it. I can see it. It’s in his eyes, all the time. I can sense it.’ 

‘You want to see it.’ 

‘It’s more than that.’ 

They are at the engine room, the door closed. Beyond, the sounds of Chewbacca at work. Metal clanging, what might be a hammer. A low, easy growl. Her hand moves to open the door. Urgent, Ben puts his own over hers, stopping her. She jumps at the contact.

‘You’ll go there, Rey, and you won’t like what you find,’ he tells her. ‘I’ll take you straight to Snoke. I serve him. Do you understand that?’ 

Her eyes blaze. 

‘Of course I understand that. But it doesn’t matter. This is what I have to do. After I’ve talked to Chewie about why the hell he let you board this ship, that is.’ 

With which she opens the door, and there, looking at them both, is the Wookie. Whatever he’s doing, Ben thinks, taking the scene in quickly, it can’t be _essential_ maintenance, because everything appears to be running just fine without it. His eyes are very sharp, and he takes Ben in, looking at him carefully, knowingly.

There’s a horrible pause, and then Chewbacca moves towards them, his eyes never leaving Ben’s face. He growls a keening, low noise that Ben recognises from his childhood, and it’s not what he’s expecting, not at all.

_Ben,_ he’s saying. _I heard you come in._

‘I –‘ Rey says, not understanding. ‘Why did you let him into the ship? You know, generally speaking, _guarding_ means not letting people in.’

The Wookie’s voice is low and kind.

_You’re Ben Solo_ he says. And then he reaches him, and – with an almighty, ship-shaking growl – enfolds him in a hug.

His fur is warm and soft, and exactly as Ben would have remembered from being young, if he’d thought about it much before this point. Somehow, in the chaos and change, Chewie’d all but gone from his head. He’d thought a lot about Han and Leia and Luke, but never about him.

Why was that? He wasn’t important in terms of Ben’s cosmic destiny, not a player in any of it. He was just a big tough guy who drove the Falcon with dad and who came round sometimes and lifted him in the air and showed him cool tricks. He hadn’t mattered at all.

Yet here he is, now, and he’s speaking softly, almost whispering in Ben’s ear, although he’s sure that Rey can hear it too.

  
 _It’s all right_ , he keens. _I understand. Han would have understood too. Evil people got inside your head._

Ben wants to tell him that it wasn’t quite like that, that there’s so much more to it, but before he even tries, Chewie shakes his head.

_Don’t bother_ , he says. _You don’t have to, not with me._

‘You two know each other, then?’ Rey says, watching this, surprise evident in her tone.

Ben turns to her.

‘Han Solo introduced us when I was a child. We met quite often before I went to temple.’

Chewie barks out a cheerful agreement.

_Lively kid_ , he says.

Rey raises her eyebrows. ‘I’ll bet…’

_Talk_ , Chewie tells her, gesturing towards Ben. _You’ve got to talk to each other. I’ll see you later, when I’m done here._

‘But what are you doing here?’ Ben asks. ‘What’s wrong? I don’t see or hear anything.’

_Later_ , Chewie says, turning back to the perfectly-working engines he he’s left behind, as if to further examine them.

+

‘He spent almost the whole time in the engine room,’ Rey says, as they sit together, the ship ploughing its dangerous course towards Kylo Ren. ‘I mean, when I was with Luke. They hardly said a word to each other. That’s… weird, isn’t it? Aren’t they friends?’

‘They used to be.’

‘And there’s nothing wrong,’ she says. ‘Not with the engine, I mean. It flies perfectly.’

She sighs.

‘Another mess,’ she says. ‘Another thing I probably can’t fix.’

  
They are back, so easily, to the intimacy they had that night, he thinks. The intimacy that they always had, from the moment they met.

‘What else can’t you fix?’ he asks.

He wants to reach out, to touch her, to put an arm around her, to kiss her. 

‘Everything,’ she says, and she sounds so tired. ‘You. The other you, I mean. The way I left things with Luke. The Force. I can’t do half of what Luke showed me.’

‘You’ll learn.’

‘But there’s no time,’ she says. ‘Maybe I could learn, if I’d had a year with him. Ten years. But I had two days, and now…’

‘I had eleven years,’ he tells her. ‘I can help you, Rey. Not with everything, but with that I can.’

‘What happens next?’ she asks, ignoring this. ‘I mean, with you. You say you’re from the future. What happens?’

He sighs.

‘Which bit do you want to know?’

‘Do you come with me?’

He puts all the gentleness he can into his voice, because she’s too hopeful. ‘No. I don’t come with you. It takes a while for me to – become this person.’

Her face falls, but the light in her doesn’t extinguish, not entirely.

‘You want to, though. I saw you. As clear as day, I saw who you are. You’re not who you’re pretending to be.’

‘It’s not as simple as that.’

‘It could be.’ She blazes so bright, the intensity of her belief in him, the way she feels about it, shining. She thinks this is her destiny, he realises. To go in this ship and bring a monster home, just because he held her hand once.

‘Rey, he says, and something in his voice must stir her, because she looks at him, concern in her eyes.

‘What happens is this,’ he says. ‘You land. I can sense you coming for miles. I wait for you, because I know exactly where you’ll be. I’ll take you to the throne room, that’s what’ll happen first. You’ll follow me there. Snoke will hurt you. I’ll let him. And then he’ll ask me to kill you, and I’ll kill him instead. I’ll take the throne. By the end of today, I’ll be the Supreme Leader. That’s what you’re going into. That’s who you want to bring home.’ 

She shakes her head, not willing to understand. The light in her is so very bright. 

‘The outside matters too,’ he tells her. ‘Maybe you’re right that I’m conflicted on the inside. But on the outside, I’m still going to do all of those things. I stand and watch while Snoke tortures you. I can feel everything you’re feeling, and I do nothing. You should know that.’ 

‘Why are you telling me this? Don’t you want me to help you?’ 

‘Yes. But not like this.’ 

He moves closer to her, so very close. Her expression is guarded and full of doubt. 

‘Don’t go,’ he tells her. ‘We’ll find another way.’ 

‘One where you don’t become Supreme Leader?’ 

‘Possibly. Although sooner or later I’m going to kill Snoke anyway. I’d been planning it for a long time. I think it’s probably inevitable.’ 

‘I’d like to help.’ 

’I figured you might.’

‘You’re so lonely,’ she says, and there’s genuine sadness in her voice. ‘I can sense it all the time.’

‘I deserve it,’ he says flatly. ‘It’s my choice. To some extent.’

‘’But what _happens?’_ She says. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘My mother dies for me,’ he tells her. ‘She uses the Force to reach me, and it kills her. And then, you nearly kill me. You save my life.’

There’s a pause.

‘Ben…’ she says, but whatever she wants to say, she never finishes it.

‘Maybe it’ll happen differently for you,’ he suggests, and she gives a half-smile, full of grief.

‘I hope so.’

‘But if you to go Kylo Ren like this,’ he adds, ‘I think it’ll be exactly the same. Or something like it anyway.’

‘Your uncle told me that,’ she tells him. ‘I mean, he told me not to go. He said it wouldn’t go like I thought it would.’

‘Luke understands a lot.’

Rey shrugs.

‘I find him a bit strange,’ she says. ‘To be honest.’

Ben smiles. ‘He’s been a recluse on island for years. He used to be less weird.’

Hesitantly, Rey smiles back.

‘Although always a bit,’ he adds, correcting himself. He stands up, stretching. ‘Turn the ship around, Rey. Let’s go somewhere else.’

‘I don’t know where.’

‘Yes, you do,’ he says. ‘Use the Force. It’ll tell you where you need to go.’

‘I don’t –‘

‘You do,’ he repeats. ‘I can’t do it, but you can. The Force will tell you.’

‘I thought it already had,’ she says, doubt in her voice. ‘To go to you. To do this.’

‘Snoke manipulated that. He made you see the things he wanted you to see.’

‘What’s to say he won’t do it again?’

Ben holds out his hands to her, palms open. ‘I can help you to stop that, I think. If you want me to.’

‘I –‘

‘We can share the Force,’ he says. ‘We have before, when I visited a different time.’

Her hesitation’s more this time than the last, and he understands. She hadn’t seen him murder his father the last time. She hadn’t met Luke.

But then, she does take his hands in her own. He feels the Force connecting them, her power and her strength rising. She’s more focused than the last time. Whatever Luke’s taught her, whatever she’s gleamed since he last did this, that day on the Falcon at the beginning of her story, she’s learned it well.

Still, he can sense how she’s reaching for answers. She’s looking for clear, certain direction, and it doesn’t work that way.

‘That doesn’t work,’ he tells her. ‘You can’t ask like that.’

With his own mind, he traces the edges of the future. Rey follows him, bird-like, flying with him. Possibilities shift around them. He sees himself the way that she must see him. There is a sense of need, urgency, to be with him and to help him. He looks pained, vulnerable. Fuck but he looks so very, very tired.

Behind it though, if you care to look closely, you can see Snoke too, the faint veins of darkness that run through that possibility, threaded into the image, carefully binding it together. As he looks at it, he can feel Rey’s surprise. She hadn’t noticed it before.

‘You have to know what it looks like,’ he tells her. ‘I know the way Snoke makes things.’

‘It looks so real.’

‘It is real,’ he says, as together they watch the image. ‘It’s just not the only real thing.’

Rey’s mind loops, and there’s Luke, watching her as she raises a saber. His uncle’s face is cold and closed. He looks unkind, but that’s only how Rey feels that he is. Her guilt is evident; so is Luke’s. She regrets leaving things that way and so does he. In time, the Force suggests, they’ll meet again. Not yet, not yet –

Ben lets her chase her thoughts, looking for answers, reaching for the thing that feels right. She’s thinking about Han, and he’s not able to stop her. He shouldn’t try.

He sees it as she sees it: the way his father falls. Her disbelief, dizzying and complete. The numbness immediately afterwards, as Han continues to be dead, and continues, and continues. The memory is painful. Next to her, Chewie howls.

 _Where do I go?_ She thinks, but there’s no answer that she can find. She’s lost. Luke has let her down. Her parents have let her down. Han is dead, and she’s so, painfully alone.

Moving across the galaxy, her mind swirls back to him. Ben helps her, directing her thoughts towards Kylo Ren, pushing past the walls that Snoke has tried to build. He, Ren, is lost in thought. He looks forlorn and angry in a way that Ben hasn’t seen before.

Distantly, he senses Rey. Her approach towards him is unclear, just a thought of the direction of her moment towards him, but he registers it anyway. He thinks about her. Jedi strength, the possibility and power she represents. She could tear the galaxy in half if she only believed that she could.

He’s thinking about what she said. He’s never been the island, nor seen what lies beneath it, but he’s read about it, a long time ago when he thought he’d become a Jedi. That chamber, the echoing that showed nothing but her own self reflected back. What does it mean? And what’s his uncle doing living in that lonely, odd place? Ren’s thoughts flicker away, closing themselves off.

Ben’s not stronger than Rey but he is better trained. He holds onto the connection, reading his former self. A lot’s happening for Ren. The Resistance is gathering strength. Leia’s army. Risks everywhere; the First Order has cracks in its defences. He himself might be one of those cracks. He knows there’ll be a strike on Snoke’s flagship soon. He can sense that an ending to something is coming, and soon. It’s a question of when and what.

And then there’s the girl. He’s always thinking about her. Always.

 _Where are you?_ he thinks.

 _Here_ , she answers, instinctively.

Kylo Ren searches, snapping his attention to her. He and Rey look at each other.

 _How are you doing this?_ he thinks. _You’re not strong enough._

_I’m getting stronger._

_You hardly know the beginning of your power._

_Show me, then_ , she says, and Ben understands what she thinks the Force is calling her to do now. _Come find me and show me._

‘Rey,’ he says out loud, shaking his head. ‘No…’

‘I won’t go to him,’ she answers, opening her eyes. The connection between her and Kylo Ren snaps apart, breaking. ‘But he’ll come to me.’

‘No. He won’t.’

She smiles, but there’s that steel in her again. That look in her eyes he recognises as a decision that’s been made.

‘I know that he will.’

‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ Ben tells her, but she’s not really listening to that. To her, Ben is the ghost now. Kylo Ren is the real person. In all their other meetings, the connection she had, the one that mattered most, was to him. Now it’s to his other self. They’ve connected through the Force, and not just once.

She dreams about him. He knows that she does, because he dreams about her too, and sometimes it is the same dream.

She closes her eyes, and reaches out with the Force. Ben, still holding her hand, doesn’t help her, but doesn’t stop her either. She’s searching, and she’s strong and she’s clever. The power she has is sharp and keen, just like it’s always been. Fast-moving, like a small animal that jumps and runs. His own power is different and using hers like this, experiencing it as she controls it, is strange.

 _I need to talk to you_ , she thinks, stretching out her mind, searching.

For a moment, nothing answers. There’s just the Force, and that keen bright energy.

But then there is his voice, echoing into the space around them, sardonic and cold.

_You know where I am._

She barely pauses.

_Yes, but that’s not where I’ll meet you._

_Where, then?_

She sighs. _I hadn’t actually thought about that._

 _Come to me_ , he tells her, commanding. _This is where you need to be, Rey. With me here._

_No._

_I can see you so clearly_ , Kylo Ren says, and Ben knows that he can. He’s really looking at her, without Snoke creating the connection, without any expectation. He’s just seeing her as she is. _You’re afraid. You’re alone. I can help you._

_Yes. But not where you are. Not like that._

Next to her, Ben holds her hand so tightly, although he’s not doing much now. This is coming from her, and the other him. His former self is expending a lot of energy to keep the connection to Rey open and alive, Ben can sense that. He wants to find her, or to be with her. There’s a need there that is more than he expected.

But why should it be more? He loves her. And Kylo Ren is still him. Even now, even in the midst of all of the fight and the struggle of it, a part of him is just the person Ben is. 

_Jakku,_ Rey thinks, suddenly. _We’ll meet there. I suppose you know the way. You’ve been before, after all._

_Yes._

_And I’m not alone_ , she tells him. _Not when I’m with you like this._

Ben wonders if it was always this intense between them. It feels more so, as an outsider to this conversation. The Force between them crackles with energy. He’d barely noticed it as it was happening, not until he’d learned they were a dyad, but it’s so obvious now. 

_We’ll be together soon_ , Kylo Ren thinks. If there’s a threat in that, Rey doesn’t choose to hear it; or perhaps there is simply no threat. Perhaps that is exactly and all that he needs to say.

The connection between them fades so slowly away, more like a sunset than a sudden rupture. It is a lingering disappearance, as piece by piece, her mind separates itself from Kylo Ren’s, and is brought back to the world she is really in, that with Ben on board the Falcon. Rey blinks, as if she’s noticing him for the first time. She comes to herself.

‘Jakku, then,’ she says, and she gives a cautious, heart-breaking little smile. ‘I didn’t think I’d be flying home so soon.’

‘He won’t necessarily come alone,’ Ben tells her. ‘You should know that.’

Rey shrugs.

‘Then I’ll have to fight whoever he brings.’

‘What do you expect to happen?’

‘To talk to you,’ she says, simply. ‘To ask you to come home with me. To tell you it’s not too late.’

‘People have told me that before.’

‘It’s worth saying again.’

With which, with all the confidence and ease in the world, she moves towards the cockpit, to steer the ship away, out towards the desert planet where so much began. Ben doesn’t follow her. There is somewhere else that he has to be. The idea is so strong and so compelling that he is almost certain it has come from the Force, the residue of Rey’s power still flooding through him, still whispering him, still guiding. It’s just an echo, more than the real, full voice he’s used to, but it’s enough.

Maybe it’s just what he wants to do, but as far as he can be sure of anything, he thinks he has to go back to that engine room.

+

Chewie is still working on something when Ben gets there, but it looks like he’s just testing the capacity of one of the drives. As Ben approaches, he turns to him, letting the engine’s dial spin unseen.

‘How’s it going down here?’ Ben asks him, gesturing around, although he still has no idea what’s occupying him.

 _Busy_.

‘With what?’

Chewie doesn’t answer this.

 _We changed course_ , he says, instead. _We’re going somewhere else._

‘Yes, to Jakku. Rey’s going to meet me there,’ Ben tells him. ‘Me, the other me.’

_Why?_

‘Good question,’ Ben answers. ‘I think she feels that she has to. And she probably does.’

 _He’ll hurt her_.

‘He might try. I’m not sure he’ll succeed.’

 _You’re not real_ , are you? Chewie says, although the word’s confusing to translate, and Ben’s rusty on the language anyway. It’s not exactly _real_. It’s more like _you don’t belong_ , or _you’re not what you seem._ He’s highlighting, in some way, Ben’s state of being in this reality, which is somewhere between real and unreal. 

‘I’m from the future. I’m … just visiting.’

 _More than that_. _I can’t sense you._

‘I don’t have the Force.’

_Ah, Han would have liked knowing that._

Ben blinks, not sure he’s exactly understood.

‘I –‘

 _He thought you would have been less fucked-up if you’d known you were still special without it_ , Chewie tells him.

He pauses slightly.

_And that you would have killed fewer people. He would have liked that too._

‘I guess he would.’

 _He loved you_.

‘I know.’

_He would have forgiven you. And I’m sorry I shot you._

‘I pretty much deserved it.’

_Yeah. Still._

Ben takes a breath. He barely knows Chewie, not really. He liked him as a kid, but that was because he was massive and furry and really good at shooting things, and there hadn’t been a lot more to it than that. It wasn’t the same as knowing or even really respecting a person, was it, liking them because of the way they looked and what they could do. Not at all.

 _It’s not too late_. Isn’t that what people spent their lives telling him, over and over again?

‘Anyway,’ he says, lightly. ‘You want to play chess? It’ll be a few hours before we land, and I think the engine’s fine.’

This earns a roar of what can only be approval. It seems that it’s the right thing to say, and he’s not surprised. Han had always told him that his best friend was a cheater at chess. Cheaters always love to play. Ben knows that one well enough.

+

Rey’s watching the game. Ben is losing, although not horribly, and Chewie is cheating with the most flagrant, outrageous good humour about it. It’s quite something to witness.

‘Isn’t that an illegal move?’ Rey asks at one point, watching him move a piece in a direction that it’s not able to go.

Chewie growls a threatening objection.

_You’d accuse an old man?_

‘If he’s cheating, sure.’

Ben shrugs. He moves his own piece, equally illegally.

‘Works for me to play with no rules,’ he says, and Rey quirks a smile. Chewie only scowls, but he doesn’t say a thing.

The atmosphere is strange, even for Ben, who’s at this point used to atmospheres so bad that you could probably choke on them, given that all he does is travel to parts of his past life that never quite happened, and in which he, another form of him, is destroying other people’s lives.

There’s an uneasy air of waiting. Of course, they are waiting to get to Jakku, but it’s more than that. And Chewie is still quiet, even if he is a cheater at chess. He says less than Ben remembers him saying, and almost nothing at all to Rey. There’s no discussion of anything except the game itself.

Rey is more distant from him, and he understands why. She’s thinking about Kylo Ren. Her mind is fixed on it, the moment of their meeting, what he’ll say, what she’ll do. There’s more riding on it than just passion. There’s the Resistance, about which she’s not said a word. If she’s been with Luke for a few days, she must be out of the loop, but she’ll wonder. It’s there in her mind.

He knows by this point, by the day he becomes the Supreme Leader, they’re in terrible trouble. Although he doesn’t know the exact way it went, he knows enough that it’s worrying if he thinks about it. Sometime soon, the majority of the Resistance will be aboard a small number of vulnerable shuttles. His mother survives. Of that, at least, he is certain.

The rest, he isn’t so sure about. How she survives, where she is now. The others who will die, the outcome of all of this, and particularly if he doesn’t, in fact, become Supreme Leader today. All of that is as unclear to him as it is to Rey.

Chewie moves another piece, and this time it’s not an illegal move, but it does, annoyingly, block Ben’s own next planned move. He’s a good player if he doesn’t cheat, and a better one if he does. Isn’t that what Han had once said?

Everywhere in this ship, his father’s ghost is there. He’s in this chess set, the one that Ben used to play with when he was younger. He’s there when Chewie looks at him. He’s there in Rey’s eyes when she suddenly looks so very sad and so very far away. His presence here is undeniable, in so many things.

Ben moves a piece of his own, lost in thought.

What the hell is she going to say on Jakku? What can she say? He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to help her. Before, the last time he was with Rey on the Falcon, he could guide her. He could prepare her and teach her and make it so that when she walked onto the ship with Kylo Ren, she knew what she was facing. He could protect her. This Rey’s past that point. All he can do is –

There’s a sudden, violent noise, an explosion. The ship judders. There’s Rey’s face, surprised, her eyes wild as she looks around. Chewie, growling, moving to run. Another noise, louder this time. What is that? He doesn’t know; can’t recognise this. He’s on his feet too, moving to look around. 

Is this an enemy attack? There was no one for miles. They set the radar to alert. Everything was on warning systems, just like always.

The Falcon lurches horribly, careening. Even as he’s being thrown to the floor, Ben tries, instinctive, to use the Force, to pull it back, but of course he fucking can’t, he can’t _do_ anything. Rey has her hand outstretched, but to do what, he doesn’t know. Something, because there’s a steadying, a kind of –

‘Ben,’ she says, and her voice is oddly distorted, like she’s speaking through water. Is that him or her? Why can’t he hear her? Is he fading out? But he hasn’t done anything, he’s just playing chess with Chewie.

The ship shakes again, and there’s that noise, that metallic, explosive sound that he can’t place. He’s been thrown against the floor and he’s conscious of his head hurting. There’s blood. Is that _his_? Or hers?

Another noise, Chewie groaning, or roaring. Ben can’t understand the words. And then, all at once, everything fades to black.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks always for the love. I am so happy to read comments and know that you are out there, following this fic that's spiralled into quite the project! 
> 
> I have to warn you all that this one is a bit... bleak. I mean, not entirely bleak but not really happy either, much like canon. From this point on, things are harder for Ben - he's made worse choices, and it's more complicated to turn back. I have to put a trigger warning on it: character death. 
> 
> Hope everyone is okay. I often write that, but since the crisis, I've started to write it with sincerity. I really hope that YOU, reader out there, are okay. This story will become happier. I promise.

The first thing is the noise. There is a metallic sound, like two plates of steel being scraped together, or something being scratched with a knife, high-pitched and incessant. He opens his eyes, and around him, fuzzily, the world appears, piece by piece.

The ship must be in tact because he’s breathing. Breathing means oxygen; means the containment of oxygen in a sealed environment. It means _not floating in space_. Not dead. That screeching, hard noise is so loud, but it might only be in his head. Is it a real noise? He can’t think, can’t seem to find a thread onto which to hold here, to make sense of all of this. Where is he?

There was a collision, or an attack, and they didn’t die. Isn’t that it? Something happened to them.

 _Them_. He and Rey and Chewie. They were playing chess. 

He is already dead, of course, he thinks, vaguely, confusedly. He died a long time ago in the future, on Exegol. He’s not dead now, but he was then and he will be soon. They were in the Falcon, and they were flying to – to Jakku, to meet him.

Why is it so dark, and why is he on the ground? He struggles to put these facts together. He had been sitting at the table, and now he’s on the floor. He must have fallen. Or been pushed, by the force of whatever happened.

The darkness must be because some of the lights went out. His thoughts come more easily now, as he wakes up, his senses sharpening rapidly. If it’s dark, then that’s because whatever hit them knocked out some of the systems. The emergency power lights are active in the corridor beyond. That is the light source, dim and neon-white, that is barely lighting his view.

If the corridor lights are active, then there _is_ a corridor. There’s more left of the ship than where they are. 

There’s a smell of something charred. They’ve been hit by something, of that he is certain. He reaches out with the Force, trying to see what it is that is burning, but he can’t. There’s just a strange, jarring sensation of connection, although to what, he doesn’t know.

 _Ben_ , someone is saying, but he isn’t sure who it is. A man, a voice he half recognises, but it’s distant. _Lightsaber, for fuck’s sake. Get up._

Lightsaber?

Right, he thinks. The one from Luke, the one that’s not really his at all. It’s there, still in his pocket. He reaches for it, and its light is brilliant and bright, illuminating the ship around him. There’s rubble on the floor, he sees, made up of small pieces of what appears to be metal, and there’s the chess set, thrown to the ground, along with the table and its contents. 

He feels dizzy, but he finds that he can stand and he can move, although there’s a nasty ache in his left leg, something that slows him down and stabs with pain, making it hard to put weight on it. It’s serious, whatever it is, but it’s nothing compared to some of the injuries he’s had, and it won’t make any difference to what he has to do. He’s trained to survive. Isn’t that what Luke and then Snoke taught him? Good guy or bad guy, the number one rule is that you have to survive.

Then he thinks he hears her voice, and his survival seems irrelevant.

‘Hello?’ she says, but her voice is so faint. ‘Hello?’

Kylo Ren knew where they were, Ben thinks bleakly, as he moves towards the source of her voice, ignoring the pain that accompanies this movement. He could have extrapolated their location from the facts he had. He knew they were close to Snoke’s base when they turned tail and set a course in for Jakku. That information might be enough, with a bit of luck, to find someone’s ship, if you were hunting them, and you could use the Force.

Then, with a sinking heart, he sees her. Rey is down on the ground, her body curled at an odd, sick angle that it shouldn’t be able to make. Her eyes are closed, and there’s dust, or debris, on her face and body. Above her, there’s a hole in the ceiling, exposing part of the ship’s frame above, wires falling out, all loose. And there, running right through Rey’s rib cage is a long, ugly piece of jagged metal. There’s blood pooling around her.

Now he remembers. There’d been blood, just before he passed out. It must have been hers.

‘Rey,’ he says, and his voice is cracked, like he’s dehydrated. He’s moving towards her, kneeling down to her.

Her eyes slowly flicker open.

‘Hello,’ she says again, looking at him, unfocused. ‘You came to meet me here.’

‘I was already here,’ he tells her, because although it shouldn’t really matter that she thinks he is Kylo Ren, it hurts anyway. ‘You’re injured, Rey. Someone fired on the ship.’

‘Hurts,’ she tells him. And then, with effort, her next word comes. ‘ _Chewie_.’

Ben understands, and he feels guilty. He should have looked for him. He should have thought about him more, but –

‘I don’t know,’ he tells her. ‘I’ll look for him.’

Her face expresses something, but he isn’t sure he knows what it is. It’s pain, or grief, or distress. But then she stretches out her hand, holding it open to him.

‘The Force,’ she says, and he knows that she means for him to use her power to find him. She is slipping away, and she knows that too. He takes her hand in his own, and around him, he can sense the world again.

Rey is very weak. Her heartbeat is slow and she’s cold, much too cold. Her mind seems confused, like a part of it is missing. Her power flickers, uncertain and faint as it moves through its weakening host, but Ben’s equal to that. What is there that a man like him doesn’t know about how to control this kind of power? Through him, it flows, not weak at all, because he is alive, and she is –

He can’t think about that. He looks for Chewie instead, tracing the lines of the Falcon’s room, which he has known for his whole life, searching for the Force, which ebbs and flows through every living being, whether they know it or not. So easy to find life, always so very easy. Cautiously, he searches. He can feel his own life, steady and strong although displaced into the wrong time, an odd dissonant note. He can feel her life, weak and fragile. And that’s all that there is.

He tries again, and even as she’s fading, Rey murmurs something, urging him on, but it’s pointless. He knows how to use the Force, and because of this, he knows what he knows: if Chewie is here in this room, then he is surely dead.

‘No,’ Rey says, faintly and grief runs through her like a wave, wild and desperate. Her eyes are closed, and she’s in a lot of pain.

Long ago, Luke had told him that no Jedi had ever been able to heal himself or herself, because that wasn’t the point of it. The point was to help other life forms, to protect them and maintain balance.

Ben’d never liked that lesson, so he tries anyway, setting the saber carefully down then closing his own eyes and putting his other hand on her, near to where the metal has cut through her, focusing on healing her, on the rejuvenation of her body and her strength, her own power flowing thing him.

He’s done this before, of course, there in the dust and ash of Exegol. Except then, it worked. This time, nothing happens. Her power in him doesn’t respond. Luke was right: she can’t give her life for herself. It has to be someone else. And he can’t, because he doesn’t have the Force, because he’s not even really here. 

He sees the body now, by the light of his saber. Chewie’s final resting place is right where he would have wanted it, had he been able to choose, at the centre of the Falcon. His body is laid flat on the cold steel floor, and his eyes are wide. He too has been stabbed by something, a sharp, large blade of metal from the ship’s casing. Around him, partially covering him, is the debris of the broken Falcon. It has been rained down on him.

The grief is immediate and sharp, and Ben can hardly bear it. He scarcely knew him. He would have liked to know him.

That’s not all. The Force she has lent to him is indicating another urgent problem, one that’s getting closer. In the distance, not far at all, perhaps some fifteen metres or so and on board another, smaller ship, he can sense the malign presence of Kylo Ren, a raw black darkness. He knows his own Force signature, even when it’s so frayed and dark. There’s blood and hated in it, and a jagged desperation. Light, too. Always that burning, steady presence of the person he used to be and the person he could still be, if that were to be what he chose.

Whatever you could say about Kylo Ren, one thing is clear. He’s not choosing the light now.

There’s another, worse thing. As Ben kneels next to her, still holding her hand, still sensing with the Force, he understands that the way the ceiling has collapsed directly above Rey was not an accident. The way that a piece of metal has specifically hit her close to her heart, like a dagger, was not the random mechanisms of an ugly fate. Chewie too was not an accident. Someone, _him_ , has planned it to be this way.

He understands, because he is the monster who is soon going to board this ship and he knows who he is and the life that he has had. The pieces fit together unerringly, with a horrible certainty. Snoke has told him to kill her, because his plan has failed. The purpose of Rey was her power. She was supposed to go to Snoke’s ship, where Snoke would either kill her or turn her to the Dark Side, whichever of those paths she chose.

The fact she didn’t go to his ship means she chose death. And Snoke’s expectation was that Kylo Ren would kill her on his behalf. So here he is now, and he has killed her, just as he was requested to do by his master. He has brought down the ship in such a way as to stab her through the heart with a part of it, because that’s a clinical, clean death, the sort he favours when causing a death is just a necessity of his work.

Now he’s coming on board now to extract the body, or to take her saber, or both. He’s checking she’s really dead. No, not just that. He’s coming because he feels bad about it, and he wants to look at her one last time.. 

Ben feels sick. He would have done this. He had the capacity and capability, and he knows that, given the right circumstances, he could have done it, just like this.

She knows it too, because Ben’s thoughts and her thoughts are linked. And yet even as she processes it, there is compassion in her. She still thinks that he’s worth saving, and he doesn’t understand that, because there’s no way that he can be.

Her hand squeezes his, and he doesn’t think she can speak. Kylo Ren is near now. He’s going to come aboard, with – Ben reaches with the Force, trying to see – with two soldiers, he counts. Ordinary men. They’ll be the ones who have to carry her body back aboard. He didn’t like to do that sort of thing himself.

The only reason he isn’t dead is that Kylo Ren didn’t know he was here. He knew that Chewie was, and he knew that Rey was, and he has killed them both. Ben has no Force signature, not being a real person in this reality, not as such. He’s far beyond what Ren can sense.

‘Take,’ Rey says, quietly. The Force seems to encourage him, binding itself to him in a different way, opening itself up further, inviting him to own it. She is giving it to him, then. She’s going to die, and she is giving him her power before she does.

‘No,’ he tells her. He hugs her to him, just gently, just like he did before, and her body’s limp and soft and so terrible in its fragility. ‘You have to be the one who survives. That’s what happens.’

She doesn’t answer that; perhaps she doesn’t need to, because it’s clear that she isn’t going to be. She’s got minutes at best, and Kylo Ren is coming in less than that.

‘Take,’ she says again, and the light in her is so bright it could burn a hole in the universe. Luke and Leia must be seeing this, because anyone who is or could have ever been a Jedi could see her when she is like this. The thought gives Ben a strange courage. He isn’t alone, even if she dies. In this reality, there’s more than one person who can stand against Kylo Ren.

He takes her power, letting it fasten itself to him. He’s only a shadow, but it holds. He can feel all of it, coursing through him, burning white and full of the anger and hope and courage that made her who she was. It seems to cling to him, to occupy the spaces that his own power has left in him, reassuringly present and exactly as he needs it, running to his fingertips, through him, everywhere. He isn’t too surprised by it. They are a dyad, after all. Their lives are entwined in ways that neither of them understands.

Even as she transfers the last of her power, the clanking of metal announces Kylo Ren’s arrival. He is boarding the ship, at the rear. They’ve split the Falcon open, prising its doors apart to get at its contents. He knows exactly what they’re doing. Didn’t he do it a thousand times? The simple manoeuvre: kill from a distance, then go close and retrieve the body.

He just didn’t think he’d do it to her, not to this girl.

As he holds her, she slips away as softly as the dusk, and in her absence, there is a white-hot rage in him, the burning of grief.

This isn’t the death she deserves. There’s no great battle or dignity in this. Her story was supposed to end and begin again on Exegol, with him, not here in this old ship, stabbed by a stray piece of junk. And yet here is the new world, him on the Falcon, holding a dead girl in his arms.

Closer and closer. He can sense Ren now, so very distinctly. That restless, angry energy, like a hungry animal stalking its prey even while it knows that it is itself cornered. He isn’t afraid of himself. What’s coming is a conflict between the two of them, inevitable and unchangeable, and all that Ben can do is wait to meet it with courage. There’s no way out beyond that. He is alone in a room that will soon contain two dead people, and Kylo Ren is out there, pulling the metal of the ship apart to come in and find him.

Ren can sense him now, rather than Rey. It must be a strange impression that he has, because what he will be able to see is Rey’s power without her occupying it. Something of Ben must be there still. Some flicker of the person he was when he had the Force, and before he became Kylo Ren.

And somewhere else, much further away, Ben can sense Luke and Leia, just like he used to be able to do when he was younger and much less scarred and he’d never assumed he’d do anything except become a Jedi. Their light is a steady, quiet power, bringing order to the galaxy, and they can see him, or perhaps they too think it’s Rey.

But then again, he suspects that Luke might be at least a bit more astute than Kylo Ren on this front, as he is on so many others, because Ben can sense an odd curiosity in him, like Luke’s not quite convinced it’s Rey he’s seeing, as if there’s a shadow that from the corner of his eye might almost be someone else…

 _Luke_? he thinks, hesitantly, reaching to him, straining to communicate beyond Rey’s energy, into his own. _It’s Ben. Your nephew._

There is no answer, but there’s a strange sensation of being watched. Someone is looking at him, although he can’t see who or what they are. He has the sense as if a bird has swooped down to look at him, perched at a distance, watchful and sharp.

Her absence leaves a space. He knew it on Exegol, and he knows it now. There’s something pre-ordained about it. If she dies, he has to become the hero. There is no time to deliberate it, and not even any real choice. There can be no escaping the neatness of the solution. She is dead and so he must become the person they all thought he was going to become, who is a Jedi, and who is a Skywalker, and who is very much not the murderous, dangerous fucker who is currently smashing apart the Falcon.

 _I need your help_ , he tells Luke, if he is listening, and Leia if she is listening too. _Urgently_. _Kylo Ren is coming._

A pause, a frisson of energy, of irritation and of thought.

And then the answer, forming, Luke’s voice in his head.

_Are you not Kylo Ren yourself? Why are you using her power and not your own?_

His uncle’s voice resonates through Ben, and he knows he’s being scrutinised. He can hear Ren’s boots, on the floor, followed by the two Stormtroopers, the body-carriers. He’ll be at the door soon. Ben steadies the Force, putting a barrier between them, as best he can. He needs more time. It won’t give him long.

In his arms, Rey is cold and still, and he can’t bear it. He gently sets her body down to the ground, stroking a stray hair from her face, tidying her. Her body rests, so lightly, there in the dark.

 _She’s dead_ , he tells his uncle, and he’s aware that he sounds desperate and it doesn’t matter. _I’m from the future. I’m injured. And Kylo Ren is nearly at the door._

He can feel Luke’s eyebrows rise at this.

_There’s quite a lot to unpack in that._

_Help me_ , he asks his uncle again, because for all of it, he isn’t sure that he’s strong enough, not when he feels like this, when Rey’s gone, when it’s all come to darkness. 

_Since when have you needed my help?_

_I need it now_ , Ben tells him. _I always needed it, but I didn’t know._

He can sense Luke, sighing, processing information very fast, taking a decision.

There’s not time to say everything that Ben should say to him. At the door, Kylo Ren is using the Force, breaking the barrier apart. It won’t be too long, not when he’s so angry and so full of purpose. He can sense Ben, and thinks that it’s Rey, and he’s furious, disbelieving that she could have survived what he knew was a fatal blow.

 _She’s dead_ , he says again, and his voice must be breaking, because he feels Luke’s sympathy, his obvious compassion and grief.

 _That really is him at the door, isn’t it?_ Luke says, eagle-eyed and attentive, sizing things up, more fully present in scene that Ben is in. _Trying to prise it open, I see, like a sledgehammer to a nut. And she gave you her power._

_Yes._

_And you’re in love with her._

_Yes._

_Right_ , Luke says, apparently taking a deep breath. _Well… stay tuned._ And then, he seems to be smiling. _Don’t die, kid. However the hell you’re alive in the first place. I want to see you._

With which, his energy flickers away, although the light that is him remains, bright and clear, in Ben’s mind. At the door, the Force is shaking, juddering, the metal almost caving in with the strength of Ren’s power, as he tries to get inside.

Ben lifts his hand, because if he’s going to fight, it’ll be when he chooses it, not when the enemy does, and all at once, the door crashes open, and Ren is propelled forwards, almost dragged into the room, furious and cold, saber raised.

Ben doesn’t have to think. His hand sweeps, fast and hard, and the two Stormtroopers are out, before they can even raise their blasters, slammed against the side of the wall. He doesn’t have time for them.

Ren’s saber is glowing red. He wields it with such violence and hatred. Ben raises his own saber, the one he borrowed from Luke, and moves towards him. There is light from the corridor as well as from both their sabers now, and he can see everything so clearly. Ren isn’t wearing his mask and his face is haggard and full of grief. Ben understands all of it, and in this moment he despises it.

Ren doesn’t even ask him who he is. He just looks at him, surprise on his face, sensing the Force in him, understanding that it is what used to be Rey’s. But then, he sees Rey’s body on the ground behind Ben, and he moves to take it, unwilling to be deterred in his task, utterly single-minded and indifferent. He’s a ghost in there, doing this mechanically, distant from himself and barely in his own body. Knowing that doesn’t make it better, or make Ben feel more kindly disposed to him. He pushes him back, with such intensity that he’s almost thrown back out into the corridor.

It’s been a while since he _really_ had the Force, and it’s been even longer since he was this angry. He doesn’t hold back. He doesn’t think he cares. Even as Ren is flying backwards, he Force slams him again, pushing harder, furious, suddenly nothing but grief and rage. Rey’s power is enough. He can use this to destroy, to change things for good. The red saber flies out of Kylo Ren’s hand, flung to the ground beyond.

This is the person who has killed Rey. And Luke, and Leia, and Han, and Chewie, and god knows how many thousands of others, and Ben understands that it is also him, but there’s another way in which he’s looking at the past, and there’s a pretty cold, hard line between the person who’s currently being smashed against the wall and himself, and that line is marked by his not being a murderous fucking scumbag.

 _You shouldn’t hate people_ , they always said. But what else is there to feel right now? He hates himself, and particularly this version of himself, who has managed – incredibly – to fuck up his life in a way that is even worse than the way Ben has fucked up his life, because he’s lost Rey.

He moves his hand again, and the Force answers as he pushes Kylo Ren to the ground, holding him down. He doesn’t have a chance. Rey is with him, her power, her energy and strength. There’s nothing Ren has that Ben can’t defeat.

He moves his lightsaber to him, and Ren’s face creases with an unkind, knowing smile.

‘You won’t do it,’ he says, and his voice is dismissive, mocking even. ‘Jedi don’t kill people at close range like this. Don’t you think I know that?’

‘You think I’m a Jedi?’ Ben asks him, and there’s the same dismissal in his voice. ‘You think I’m an illusion, something Luke made?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m not.’ He holds the saber in place, against Ren’s throat, almost but not quite touching his skin. ‘I’m you. I know everything you know. How to use this saber. How to hurt you, but not so that you die. So that you suffer.’

‘Liar.’

‘I’m willing to test it. Are you?’

The saber grazes closer, so near his throat it could burn the skin. Kylo Ren’s using the Force, trying to lift the saber and knock Ben from his feet, and the effort it takes to stop him is intense. They can’t keep this up forever, Ben knows. At some point one of them has to break.

‘You’re injured,’ Ren says, coolly. ‘You can’t seriously think that you’ll win.’ 

‘I seriously do think that,’ Ben says, easily. ‘Not because I think I’m stronger. Because you’re alone and I’m not.’

Ren’s face shows nothing but contempt.

‘Jedi,’ he says, witheringly. ‘Going to try to save my soul? Tell me about the wonders of love and family.’

‘No,’ Ben says. ‘You don’t give a shit and it’s too late for that. You killed Rey. It’s way too late.’

Ren looks surprised, for a brief moment, but he regains himself.

‘Interesting,’ is all he says. ‘Luke’s got a new tactic.’

‘I’m not Luke.’

Ren manages to lift the saber from his throat, pushing it back by a few centimetres, far enough that he can gasp in a second of air. He’s gritting his teeth, straining with the effort of it. Ben holds steady. He feels strangely calm and clear. This is the work that he has to do. Nothing could be more certain.

‘You’re not me either,’ Ren says. ‘I don’t care who you are.’

And with an almighty surge of power, he stands up then, pushing Ben back, hard, so that he almost falls, and of course, onto his injured leg, just as Ren wants it. The stab of white-hot pain makes him feel sick, but he’s equal to it. He has to be equal to it. With his hand, he blocks Ren’s saber, currently flying towards him, from entering his hand, holding it in mid-air, floating dangerously between them.

‘You don’t get to have that,’ Ben tells him, furiously. ‘You don’t fucking deserve it.’

Ren’s concentrating on getting the saber back. He’s not even listening, just focused, intently, on regaining it. Everything else is white noise. But then, below, there’s a clanking sound, as if someone is entering the ship, someone new. He jerks his head, although he’s still focused on getting the saber.

‘Who?’ he asks Ben, rudely, but Ben has no idea – or rather, he has some but he doesn’t want to put his hopes in it being true.

‘Is it not some of your First Order friends?’ he asks. ‘The backup team.’

‘I need no backup.’

Both of them are sensing with the Force, each other, themselves, and the new presence, something or someone, apparently moving below. Between them, the saber remains balanced, unwavering.

And then, Kylo Ren snarls, and the saver does waver, moving slightly towards Ben, who pulls it hard, dragging it further towards him still, keeping his concentration. 

‘Luke,’ Ren says, and his voice is full of darkness, black and terrifying. 

Ben smiles.

‘I told you I wasn’t alone.’

Sure enough, his uncle’s energy is there, bright and powerful. He seems to be pissed off, which Ben thinks is probably accurate whether Luke is really here or not. Ren’s angry, distracted by it. His grip on the Force is weakening, and his saber flies to Ben, landing in his free hand. The feel of it is disturbing. It’s full of death and darkness. It is made from murder and loss, and he doesn’t like to be holding it again, even though it had been his for so long. He deactivates it but keeps it in his hand.

Ren growls, frustrated. But then, he seems to regroup his thoughts, and with a wave of his hand, too fast for Ben to stop, Rey’s saber is flying towards him instead. Ben hadn’t thought of it, but of course, that’s the one he wanted, that he thought belonged to him. Whirling through the air, its handle spins lightly, as it leaves her body and –

‘No,’ a voice says at the door, and then, all at once, the saber is Luke’s, just as it should always have been and always was. His uncle holds it in his hand, activating it so very fast, and his face is tired but resolute.

Several things happen at once. Kylo Ren throws a Force blow at Luke of such intensity that the ship shakes, knocking Ben back, causing him still further pain. He gasps out a noise of agony. Luke does nothing at all, just stands there, in apparent control, a vague smile on his lips as if there is something bleakly amusing about it all. And in Ben’s head, the voice of Snoke booms.

 _Surrender_ , he hears. _No one can stand against me._

Luke must be hearing the same message, because he laughs.

 _Looks like someone is anyway,_ he says, indifferently. _And hi, by the way. We haven’t met._

 _Surrender_ , Snoke repeats. _To my young apprentice._

 _He was my apprentice first,_ Luke replies. _Didn’t work out that well for me._

 _Kill_ , Snoke says, and his voice is deafening. It is an order to Kylo Ren, and its power seems inescapable.

‘Does he always talk to you like you’re his pet dog?’ Luke asks Kylo Ren, curiosity in his tone.

‘Most of the time,’ Ben replies.

‘Shut up,’ Ren snarls, at both of them or neither. He raises his hand, attempting to choke Luke, and Ben knows that he’s not thinking clearly, believing him to be solid, human form. He remembers it. The rage, the nearness of the victory he thought he could scent, for which he’d been waiting for so very long. It was maddening.

Luke only shrugs.

‘Hi, Ben,’ he says, turning to him instead, and there’s a softness in his eyes, like he’s genuinely happy to see him. ‘Glad you called.’

‘Glad you answered.’

‘So what’s the situation here?’ Luke asks, even as Ren continues to try to choke him. Ben’s holding him off, pushing him away from Luke, trying to keep him from getting at one of the sabers in the room. The energy in this small space could split the world apart. The three of them shouldn’t be together like this. 

‘I murdered the girl,’ Ren tells him, and bizarrely it sounds like he wants Luke’s approval, or a compliment for this, like he needs something from him. ‘I murdered your friend the Wookie. And now I’m going to murder you and whatever trick you’ve made. The Resistance is dead, and the Jedi are dead. You’ve failed.’

‘Well.’ Luke takes a breath. ‘I don’t know. I’m not dead. And it seems to me like Ben’s a Jedi. So I’m wondering about that too. And it further seems to me like -’ as Ren tries to choke him with renewed energy, he takes a brief pause, ‘- like if that Ben over there is your future, you’re a Jedi yourself, kid. Just not yet.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Ren’s face curves into an ugly smile. He moves towards Ben, and he’s so fast, beyond humanly fast, and before Ben knows it, there’s a saber at his throat and it’s his own. He can see the whites of Ren’s eyes, he’s so close. His face is wild, and Ben’s reminded of the kid who destroyed the Temple, because the insensibility in his eyes is the same. There’s panic beneath it, way deep down, but it’s too buried. The surface is nothing but rage and hatred.

‘I’m not a Jedi,’ he says. ‘I’m a murderer.’

Ben can feel the saber’s heat. If it cuts, he’ll die within a second. But the fact it hasn’t cut yet, means he is a bargaining chip in the battle between Luke and Kylo Ren. He’s the hostage.

‘You’ve mentioned that,’ Luke says, irritably, watching. He doesn’t approach, just watches. Ben knows that his former self is listening. Whether he liked it or not, he always listened to Luke. ‘You seem very keen to tell me that you’re a murderer. What do you expect me to say about it?’

‘Aren’t you going to say how disappointed you are?’ Ren says, coldly.

‘No.’ Luke does move closer towards them, just a fraction. ‘But I am going to tell you to lower that saber from his throat. Wouldn’t you rather kill me?’

He raises his hand, just lightly, the saber glowing strong and bright.

Ren shakes his head.

‘I’d rather kill this guy, actually,’ he says, moving to strike. Ben takes a deep breath. ‘The one who’s wearing my face.’

With which he swipes, hard, intending to kill, but the force of Luke’s rebuff is terrifyingly strong, and Ben knows that he is afraid. He’s always been afraid of Luke. The saber in Ren’s hand shakes and there’s nothing he can do about it as it falls, clattering to the ground.

‘Now you’re pissing me off,’ Luke says, trying as he says it to pull him towards him and away from Ben.

Ben helps. He pushes Ren away from him, towards Luke, using everything that Rey has given him. The heat of the saber lingers against his throat, even as he uses the Force, and Rey’s power and his strength and Luke’s mingle into one vast light. There’s so much of it.

Kylo Ren is between them, in the centre of the room, and the tip of Luke’s saber, the one that belonged to Rey, is at his heart.

He is looking directly at his uncle and he is fearless, breathing hard, but staring him down. Luke looks back, the saber in his hand very steady.

‘Do it, then,’ Ren says. ‘Finish what you started that night at the temple.’

Luke looks at him, and then over to Ben, who stares back, wondering if he’ll do it.

‘No,’ he says, but he doesn’t lower the saber’s point, straight at his nephew’s heart.

Kylo Ren laughs.

‘Fucking idiot,’ he says. ‘Still? Really?’

‘Always,’ Luke tells him. ‘Even when you’re a piece of shit.’

Ren looks puzzled.

‘Why?’

‘Do you really not know?’ Luke sighs. ‘Because in the future you obviously become the kind of man who stands up to trash like you. Your future’s over there right now, holding a white lightsaber.’

‘This is getting even more pathetic,’ Kylo Ren says, although he sounds a little doubtful. ‘I killed Han. I killed the little Jedi bitch and the dumb animal. I’ll kill you.’

Hot, furious rage lashes through Ben. The red saber, the one he still has, could slice him in two in a second. He lifts it to activate, but –

‘That crap doesn’t work,’ Luke says, observing this with a shake of his head. ‘You know I’m right. It don’t matter whether you like it or not, Ben. It’s just true and there’s shit all you can do about it. I’m sorry.’

‘That’s not my name,’ Ren says, and he is furious.

Luke smiles, a little sardonically. ‘Not yet.’

‘Not ever.’

Ben laughs, feeling a strange liberation rising up in him.

‘It will be,’ he tells Ren. ‘Uncle’s right. There’s basically nothing we can do, because in the end, you’re always going to choose this. You know that.’

‘No,’ Ren says, almost shouting the word. He’s furious, and wild. Luke just sighs.

‘Get out of here,’ he tells him. ‘I’ve got things to discuss with my nephew.’

‘I’m taking her body,’ Ren hisses. ‘The girl.’

‘You’re not,’ Luke says, and his saber’s still at Ren’s heart. ‘I think we’ve firmly established that.’

‘And you won’t kill me?’ Ren sneers. ‘Even though you know that I’ll kill you. And him and everyone. I’ll –‘

Ben interjects.

‘Enough,’ he tells him, circling, the Force crackling through him. ‘Go. You don’t deserve to live, but…’ he pauses, thinking about it. ‘Maybe I do. And at some point, you’ll understand why. In a few weeks, you’ll hear Emperor Palpatine’s voice. You’ll search for him, and you’ll find him. He’ll offer you power, but you’ll know it’s a lie. Rey’s supposed to be here to stop him. Without her, you know what you have to do.’

Kylo Ren shakes his head.

‘Bullshit,’ he says, but there’s an edge of worry.

‘No,’ Ben tells him, and he’s very calm. ‘Get the fuck out of here.’

And with the Force, drawn from him and from Luke, he throws Ren out of the room, as hard as he can, his power sweeping through him, the rage and fury, and the grief and anger, and he knows that he’s going to hurt him, but he can’t say he cares that much if he’s injured. He deserves it.

There’s a smashing noise, where he falls, and a noise of pain. Ben doesn’t follow it. He doesn’t care. He won’t come back, not if he knows he can’t win. He’ll go to his ship and lick his wounds and plot and rage and scheme. He’s not worth thinking about. Not right now.

So he turns away from him, towards Luke, who has moved to Rey’s body, and is looking at her, full of sadness.

‘I’m supposed to save her,’ Ben tells his uncle. ‘On Exegol. Palpatine kills her, and I give her my life. That’s how it happens. But I can’t now, not with her own power. It doesn’t work.’

‘Ah,’ Luke says, and a tear is falling. ‘I see. Well, then that’s clear enough then.’

He smiles.

‘I knew I was going to die today, kid. I just didn’t know how yet.’

Ben shakes his head.

‘Don’t, Luke…’

‘It’s all right,’ his uncle says, and his voice is gentle. ‘I don’t mind, Ben. I’ve had time to prepare. It’s only a rearrangement of form and being, you know.’

‘That’s a cheesy way of saying you’ll die,’ Ben tells him, irritably, and Luke just laughs.

‘Guess it is. But I won’t be dying. I’ll be living through Rey. And you, if you get your head out of your ass at some point, which I suppose you will. And Leia, and everyone out there who serves the Good in the world.’

‘And anyway,’ he adds. ‘If I’ve got to die, I’m glad it’s with my absolute favourite nephew.’

‘I’m your only nephew.’

‘Yeah, but also my favourite. And,’ Luke says, somewhat ironically, ‘admittedly also very much my least favourite.’

Ben smiles, although he’s more sad than he thinks he’s ever been.

‘I became a terrible person,’ he says.

‘Yes. You did.’

‘And I don’t know if he’ll change.’

‘He’ll turn,’ Luke tells him, gently. ‘Sooner or later. If you did, he will. And she’ll be alive when he does.’

‘Things can always go differently.’

‘Not these things.’

‘I don’t want this,’ he tells Luke. ‘For you to die like this. It’s my fault.’

‘It’s my choice,’ Luke corrects, gently. ‘Which you know. I don’t have to, Ben. It’s up to me. Or are you arrogant enough to think that every single thing that happens is your fault or your decision?’

‘No.’

‘So, let me make my choice.’

‘I –‘

Luke closes his eyes then, as he kneels next to Rey.

‘I’ve never done this in a projection,’ he says, lightly. ‘Maybe it won’t work. Guess we’ll find out.’

His hands are on her, gentle and calm. His face expresses compassion, and ease, and he seems entirely at peace. Ben can sense the Force around him, and then, within her. There’s life.

Luke’s fading away now, dissolving, disappearing. There’s a small smile on his face. And then, the very best of things. Rey opens her eyes.

‘Hi,’ she says, blurrily. She breathes, her chest rising and falling. Looks around her. ‘What happened?’

‘You died,’ he tells her. ‘Luke gave you his life.’

‘I – what?’ She sits up, a little hesitantly. ‘Ow,’ she tells him. ‘I feel like I’ve been punched in the face. Where’s Ren?’

‘He left.’

‘Oh.’ She blinks, confusedly. ‘And –‘ Her face falls. ‘Chewie?’

Ben shakes his head and she stares, horrified.

‘No.’

‘I’m sorry. Ren killed him.’

Rey’s eyes are full of tears. Ben takes her hands in his, and she doesn’t seem to mind. He smiles at her.

‘But you’re okay,’ he tells her, and he’s not sure if he’s saying it to reassure her or himself and she smiles back, a little hesitantly.

‘I think so. Yes.’

‘You need your power,’ he tells her. ‘You gave it to me. Which was very noble, and very much appreciated, by the way.’

‘Oh.’

He transfers it back to her, hoping that this time, perhaps for the first time in his stupid life, he’ll get it right.

‘I was really just borrowing it,’ he tells her. ‘You’ll need it now. For what’s coming next.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Go to Leia,’ he says, still holding her hands, ‘and tell her that Emperor Palpatine isn’t dead. He’s on Exegol. Explain to her that… that Snoke is just a puppet of Palpatine’s. And tell her that... her son is an asshole right now, but he might be worth saving in the future.’

Rey laughs, just lightly.

‘I think she already knows that,’ she tells him, and then she leans forward, unexpectedly, to kiss him.

When she draws back, her eyes are very soft.

‘You’re injured,’ she says. ‘Let me …’

He does let her, and he’s grateful for it. He’s so very grateful that she’s alive. Nothing has gone as he wanted here. Ren seems if anything only full of yet more darkness. Luke is dead. Snoke is alive. There’s so much here that’s worse. And yet, in the face of that, there is one fact, at least, that holds the balance of the galaxy. Rey is alive.

‘I’ll disappear soon,’ he tells her, because he’s fairly sure that he will. ‘I think I’ve done what I was supposed to. Or maybe you have, I don’t know.’

She pulls a face.

‘And Kylo Ren?’

‘He won’t disappear. He’ll… look for Palpatine. He might kill Snoke.’

‘Ah,’ she says.

The room is starting to fade out.

‘I’ll help him,’ Rey says, and her voice is wavering, as Ben is pulled away from her. ‘Not for him, but for you. For the person he might become.’

‘Yes,’ he says, although he doesn’t think she’ll hear. He understands now. ‘Yes.’

Everything resets itself, just as he knew it would; just as it has to. It’s not the Falcon, nor the base, nor Luke’s island, or home, or anywhere that he’s been so far. His throat tight, he realises exactly where he is. Above him, vast statues tower, their faces severe and cold. The air is still and undisturbed.

This is Exegol, then. Where it began and ended. With a deep breath, he walks towards the place that he knows he has to go.


	16. Chapter 16

He’s standing in the long, narrow cavern, quite near to the entrance, which lies somewhere far above him – inconvenient, he thinks, as he looks up at the small chink of light it reveals, since without the Force there’s no obvious way of getting back up there, not that he can see. He could try to climb, but the rocks are sheer and unforgiving. He’s already had one experience climbing up rocks here, and he’s not keen to repeat it.

It is cold, a draught blowing down, and there is – much as there ever was – a pervasive air of evil. Something here is wrong. You don’t need to have the Force to feel it. There is simply something in this place that is sick and stale.

Whatever he is here to do, it must involve meeting Palpatine. What else is there? What else could there be in this dead place?

The only thing that can be right is to walk further towards him, but as he takes his first step, he’s aware of how little he wants to do it. He has a sinking certainty that if a shadow of Ben Solo walks towards the Emperor, without the Force and with knowledge of the future, the only thing that will await him is a swift and painful death. Palpatine won’t want to talk. He’ll just kill. Ben will be nothing to him other than a small problem, a strange quirk of time and history that can be removed quickly.

That’s what this is, he thinks, taking the second step. He’s not going to be able to reason with Palpatine. And as for killing him, without the Force this is impossible. 

Still he walks further. It isn’t really important, he tells himself, whether he dies. The point is to do whatever he can, and to do it bravely.

But then, he sees himself. Approaching, just rounding the corner at the distant end of the cavern, his face bathed in shadow, half-dark, is what is unmistakably Kylo Ren. His boots are heavy in the silence, thudding against the stone, and the red of his lightsaber is bright as he holds it aloft. In his other hand, he’s carrying his mask.

Even as he moves to hide himself, dodging into a wide crevice in the rock, Ben feels an instinctive fury towards him. Fury for what he did to Rey, although he didn’t actually do it, not in this timeline anyway. For the fact that he was capable of it. For the whole stupid fucking mess of it, Ben is angry with him, and he feels afraid of that feeling. Being this angry can’t be a good thing. It can’t be the right thing.

Whether it is or not, he feels it. He’s thinking about Rey 

He hasn’t seen him. Ren is inattentive to his surroundings, that much is apparent as he draws closer. He seems distracted. At one point he stops, for no reason that Ben can see, and appears to be lost in thought, to the extent he stops moving altogether for a good minute. Whatever he’s thinking is apparently not happy, because he rubs his hand over his closed eyes, exhausted and lost. 

There’s that strange, fractured energy to him, like he’s not really there at all. Ben notices it more now. There’s a sense of absence in him. Something is missing, some important but almost imperceptible thing that he used to have. Seeing it makes Ben’s anger dissipate, at least a little, in an uncomfortable twist of pity.

It wasn’t just about Leia. Even before that, it was getting worse. It wasn’t a question of the call to the light. It was a question of the repulsiveness of the dark. After he became Supreme Leader, things began to feel emptier and emptier. The place he’d worked so hard to get to hadn’t made him happy. It hadn’t changed anything at all about his state of mind.

He knows what day this is now too. It’s the first time he met Palpatine.

He barely remembers it, other than that he had been dog-tired after days of travelling and fighting to get there. It’s that that gives it away – the far-away look in Ren’s eyes, like he’s about to fall asleep. Almost numb with exhaustion, bristling with rage and murder, he’d found him here, hiding under the earth. He’d promised him the usual things. Ultimate power, the culmination of his destiny, et cetera. Kill for me, and I’ll give you –

It was always the same stuff with these people. Same lines, same routine.

What had seemed alluring when he was 23 now seemed like nothing except a con trick, a false promise whispered to the naïve and gullible, which was exactly what it was, only he’d never seen that with Snoke, because he was the first one to do it. This time around, he’d seen it, and it had made him even more tired than he already was.

He approaches himself with that in mind, carefully stepping out to meet him, because he knows that it is what he has to do.

‘Always the same bullshit, right?’ he says, drawing a deep breath, and his former self turns to him, startled, his saber raised. His eyes flash. 

‘Who are you?’

Ben moves a step closer.

‘You from the future, without the Force.’ He holds up his hands. ‘Long story, mostly a weird one. You’re thinking that he’s just like all the rest of them, another liar with the same shitty promises, and you’re right.’

Ren’s face is puzzled.

‘From the future? We look exactly the same.’

‘Yeah. Not that distant a future. Four months or so?’

‘Oh.’

He doesn’t seem minded to kill Ben, or to do much of anything. He seems nothing except exhausted, that curious blankness on his features as he looks at him. There’s indifference in it. 

‘What happens in four months, then?’ he asks. ‘To send me back in time without the Force.’

‘You die.’

There is no shock. He just appraises Ben, looking at him carefully.

‘Who kills me?’

‘Palpatine. Indirectly.’

‘And directly?’

‘You choose it to save her life.’

There’s only one _her_. Ren doesn’t even ask who Ben means. 

‘You’re not going to suggest I’m a Jedi trick?’ Ben asks, because he’d been expecting that. ‘Force slam me to the ground? Interrogate me? Torture me for information?’

Ren shrugs. He carries on walking, apparently towards the exit, his feet dragging as he does. Ben follows, cautious, a few steps behind – not that that would help him if Ren chose to attack.

‘They’re all dead,’ Ren says, and Ben knows that he means the Jedi. ‘Rey’s not strong enough to play tricks like that. And anyway, it’s not her style.’

‘Palpatine could create me.’

He reflects, pausing to think about this. ‘Sure, but why would he? That’s not part of his plan. You’re right. It was the same bullshit as always.’

‘ _Ultimate power_ ,’ Ben says, mimicking a Sith tone, sibilant and harsh. ‘ _Power beyond your wildest dreamssss.’_

Ren’s lip curves, not into a smile but something more like a grimace.

‘Right. The usual.’

They both sigh. Above them, the exit looms, so far away and only barely light.

‘Harder to jump it without the Force,’ Ben says, indicating upwards to make his dilemma clear. ‘I mean, possibly an athletic challenge, but if we’re planning on getting out of here - ’

Ren just waves his hand, and Ben flies neatly upward, landing exactly where he should.

‘Thanks.’

‘Yeah, don’t mention it,’ Ren says, politely, as he follows him, flying up. Together they ascend, up and into the dusk light of a ruined planet. There’s nothing there. It’s all dead. Scorched earth, ruined buildings broken apart, on which grey mosses grow. A dust storm is coming, but what’s new in that? A storm is always coming here.

‘Horrible place,’ Ben says, looking around this desolate scene, and it’s a relief to say it out loud, rather than just to think it.

Ren shrugs.

‘I don’t notice.’

‘Sometimes you do,’ Ben says. ‘I remember noticing the storm when I first arrived, over the whole surface. I thought it was pretty intense. The worst I’d ever seen, even worse than on Ravna.’

There is a silence as Ren looks around, his eyes sharp. There is nothing on the horizon. Grey, formless shapes in the growing dark. A flash of odd light, something from the Force, an echo. There is nothing living to make it, so it’s just a memory of someone’s power. Ghosts wherever you look.

‘Maybe,’ he says, eventually, and he appears to be supressing a yawn. ‘Maybe I noticed that.’

He is bone-weary.

‘Has it been a long day?’ Ben asks him. ‘I don’t remember exactly what I did today, apart from what happened here. I think it was a long day.’

‘It’s irrelevant. I can sustain myself beyond tiredness.’

Ben rolls his eyes.

‘I’m you,’ he tells him, and he holds his palms open, a gesture of submission, or welcome, he doesn’t know what. ‘You don’t have to do that stuff with me. I know what it’s really like.’

‘I suppose I should kill you,’ Ren says, in response to this, although he doesn’t seem overly enthused by this idea. ‘You’d die in an instant. You have no means of stopping me.’

‘Yeah, probably. You could choke me, or you could –‘ Ben looks around. ‘Fling me over that ravine. Or you could –‘

‘Stab you,’ Ren proffers.

‘Right. You could stab me.’

‘I can sense your feelings,’ Ren says. ‘You’re not afraid.’

‘I kind of am,’ Ben tells him, honestly. ‘But you know how it is.’ He uses a Jedi word, because he can’t think of a better way to say it. ‘ _Veresthna.’_

This means, broadly, that fear is irrelevant in the face of courage. Feeling fear is only the inevitable shadow of bravery; that’s what he was taught, so long ago.

He half-expects Ren to explode in fury at this, but he doesn’t.

‘ _Veresthna_ ,’ he repeats. ‘It’s been a long time since I heard that word.’

‘Yeah,’ Ben says. He grins although there is little to smile about. ‘Well, that’s how I feel about all this. Standing here with you on a dead planet, with a dead guy beneath us, I mean.’

‘Let’s go then,’ Ren says indifferently.

‘Go where?’

‘Don’t you know? You’re from the future. Tell me what you did next.’

Ben thinks. ‘Went back to base. Reported on the situation, at least in part. Tried to get them to see the advantages of Palpatine’s offer.’

‘And did they?’

He shrugs. ‘More or less. You know what it’s like when it comes to Force stuff. And then I pretty much passed out, because I was exhausted. Even though,’ and he switches his tone to slightly mocking, ‘of course, I can _sustain myself_.’

‘I think I am tired,’ Ren says, almost curiously, like the idea is novel.

‘I know. Me too.’

‘I suppose we could sleep,’ he suggests and Ben shrugs.

‘If you’ve got the time.’

They walk together like brothers to the ship. It’s the strangest thing. He’d expected anger. He’d expected the wild rage of the Kylo Ren he just left, not so many months ago. How long between Luke’s death and now? Not more than six months. Almost nothing, really, between that person and the one who’s walking next to him now.

And yet, and yet. This version of him seems beyond the anger that had driven him then. The acceptance is worrying, Ben thinks. It can’t be a good sign that he barely reacts to the news that he’ll be dead in months. That’s not what an all right person would feel about it.

Rey had said she could see the cracks in his mask. Alone with him now, he can’t help but think there’s hardly a mask at all.

The ship, when he opens it, is exactly as he remembers: small, but functional. Advanced and expensive too, one of the best that the First Order has to offer. There’s nowhere to sleep, as such, but he often slept on the floor, or in the pilot’s seat, half curled up. Those things didn’t really matter to him. The work was what mattered.

This seems to be the plan for now, too, because once they’re in space, safely drifting, Ren throws him his coat and indicates that he should sleep on the floor before taking the seat himself.

Ben’s afraid of him, a little, because he’s volatile and intemperate, and for all he knows he might be awoken in an hour with a saber at his throat, but it’s as he said. Courage always comes with a small dose of fear. That’s just how it is.

They sleep. Around them, the stars shine much as they ever did.

+

When he wakes up, after a disturbed and uncomfortable sleep, he finds that Kylo Ren is still sleeping in the chair, which he has tilted back slightly, his breathing heavier and softer. Ben approaches, moving softly, and he sees that some of his hair has fallen over his eye, although he seems peaceful enough about that. Ben watches him sleep, just for a moment. He looks vulnerable asleep. Younger, too. He feels a strange compassion for him, as if he is some other person altogether, a lost and lonely person, and not only a different version of himself.

He must have been awake for days, flying to Palpatine with the wayfinder fresh in his bloodied hand. He can’t even remember how long all of that took. Too long. Lucky, in the end. If he’d been well-rested, chances are that Ben would have been thrown down that ravine after all. 

In the absence of anything useful to do, he paces the ship, which is tiny and offers nothing to do if you’re not piloting. He uses the fresher, and eats something, some ration that he finds that tastes like they always did. It’s an oddly monastic life, he thinks. He hadn’t seen it before, but all of this is not really so different from his life at Temple. Rations, devotions, labours. Long and wearisome days in the pursuit of an ideology. If he ever gets through this trial, he’d like to try a different kind of life. Something a little bit less monochrome.

As he’s thinking this, idling by the window through which he can see nothing of interest, Ren wakes up with a start, a gasping, sharp exhalation of breath. Ben turns to him, and he blinks rapidly, sitting up almost immediately, and then standing to face him.

‘Hi,’ Ben says, a little cautiously. He knows he doesn’t like to be disturbed when he first wakes up.

He stares Ben down, as if he could melt him to dust with his expression. Nothing happens, of course. Ben just looks back.

‘Right,’ Ren says, relaxing a fraction. ‘Okay. So you weren’t just a hallucination then.’

‘No.’

‘I thought because I was – ‘ He breaks off, but Ben just rolls his eyes.

‘I wasn’t a hallucination caused by lack of sleep. I really am from the future.’

‘And you’re Ben Solo, I suppose. That’s what you call yourself.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’ve returned to the Light.’

Ben smiles at him, although he’s not expecting anything back in kind.

‘Ever think about going back to the Light yourself?’ he says, and he’s teasing, asking it almost sardonically. They both know that he does. He thinks about it all the time.

‘If Luke weren’t dead, I’d say you were a vision from him. This is the kind of shit he would pull,’ Ren says, stretching, tense, and ignoring the question. 

‘You did say it. I’ve been travelling around the past for a while. I’ve met lots of Kylo Rens. Lots of Lukes. Lots of Reys. And you thought I was a trick from Luke on more than one occasion.’

‘I stand by my own comments,’ he says, dryly. ‘Even if I didn’t make them.’

He stretches out his hand with the Force and his cloak, the one on which Ben slept, flies into his hand.

‘You know you can’t leave,’ he says, almost conversationally, as he fastens it around himself. ‘If you’re me, you must understand that already.’

‘I’m not trying to leave,’ Ben tells him. ‘I don’t think I can, but even if I could, I wouldn’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m supposed to do something here. Change something.’

Ren almost rolls his eyes.

‘I hope this isn’t going to become a tearful plea for me to return to the Light. Because –‘

‘I know,’ Ben interrupts. ‘No. It’s not going to be that. But if I did, I think I’d have to use Dad’s words.’ He smiles, remembering them. ‘”Try to do the whole… Light thing, for fuck’s sake I know it’s not 100% you, but just give it your best.”’

  
There’s a horrible, electric pause, and it’s like all the air in the room has vanished all at once. Ren’s face falls into a stony mask of fury, and his hand clenches. Ben feels the air tightening around him, and he knows he’s about to be choked, and quite possibly to death.

He understands. _Dad_ isn’t a word that Kylo Ren uses. Not ever. Not in his head, nor out loud, nor at any time and for any reason. It is a dangerous word. It is a grenade that once created, once voiced, can only explode, can only maim and kill. Now Ben has unleashed it, damage is the only possible consequence.

‘No,‘ Kylo Ren says, obviously regaining himself as best he can, although he doesn’t ease his grip on Ben’s throat. ‘Han Solo didn’t say that.’

‘He did.’

‘Not to me. And he would never be so flippant about – about my choice.’

Despite the danger of his situation, there is something almost ridiculous about this remark that makes Ben want to laugh.

‘He was always flippant,’ he says, gasping out the words. ‘Don’t you remember? He was the most flippant person in the galaxy.’

‘Not when I killed him,’ Ren says angrily, his voice suddenly hard. With his hand he drags Ben across the floor towards him, and then releases him sharply onto the floor, so that he almost falls at his feet, breathing hard, his throat painful and raw. ‘Not then.’

‘No,’ Ben agrees, as he stands. ‘Not then. But you have to admit, he was a pretty flippant guy otherwise.’

He holds out his hands to him, palms skyward.

‘Take my memories,’ he says. ‘If you don’t have your own anymore, you can have mine.’

‘He died and there are no memories,’ Ren says flatly as he refuses this, with an obvious grief in his voice, and Ben realises what he should have always seen: even if there’s only four months between them now, he’s still living in a very different emotional reality to this Kylo Ren.

‘There are,’ he tells him. ‘He died here, in this world, and in my own. But in others, he didn’t die. I –‘ Ben grins, a little ruefully. ‘I met him, right before I should have killed him. I knocked him out, actually, but it was for his own good. Right there on the Base, where you met him. Put him in the Falcon and got Rey to fly him out.’

‘Impossible.’

‘Not impossible.’

He holds out his hands to him again and Ren stares.

‘You can have the memories,’ Ben tells him. ‘Not just that one, but all of them. I can’t stop you taking them by force, but I’d prefer to give them, and you know it’ll make it easier. They belong to you as much as to me.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

’So look and see that I’m a liar.’

He does take Ben’s hands then. The sensation of it is unsettling. The same hands. The exact same fingers. The same size and warmth and feel. Your own hand, except it belongs to someone else.

Between them, energy fizzes. The Force. Ben can feel his own power, but it doesn’t belong to him. He can sense his own memories, his own thoughts. Doubt. Anxiety. Rage.

He isn’t this person anymore, and he won’t be again.

 _Have everything_ , he thinks, and he dumps all of it into his head with an unstoppable power that is his own in duplicate, the Force splitting between them, finding a home in both. There’s Leia, right before she dies, and Rey as she fights. He’d not been fighting to kill. He’d just been parrying to keep her occupied, and then in that moment of distraction, she’d –

There she is, healing him. He can feel her hand on his skin.

Palpatine and Rey now, there at the end of everything. The energy between him and Rey. His falling. Rey’s body, cold and limp. He’s cradling her in his arms. She can’t be dead, can’t be dead, and in his grief he suddenly understands what it is that he has to do. It’s always been this.

The island then, and together they spiral back into the past, going so far down. There’s him, tiny and in Leia’s arms. Luke, fighting to save his life and he’d never known. That gappy-toothed little kid, and Han, laughing as he tries to fix the Falcon. Little Ben’s holding a saber, and he’s lethal – there’s no way it’s safe, no way at all.

They watch for what feels like a long time. Ben’s memories circle and loop, imperfect. Flashes of things, the most important things. The day at temple when he breaks everything apart, and how he tries to put it back together. Luke’s there. _Always, kid_ , he’s saying, as he holds up the roof from collapsing.

Han and Leia, the moment he walks into the room at home and back into their life. They’re looking for Luke, and yes, Luke’s there on that miserable island and he’s opening the door to him. Kylo Ren watches him, as he destroys the world. Rey, so young, on the Falcon. Her eyes burn with curiosity. She’s going to –

He and Rey are having sex, and her body’s the most brilliant thing, and she kisses him, bending down, her lips on his. They could do this forever. Perhaps they will. He’s lost in her. He could never, ever get enough of this and he’s stroking her, lifting her to him, to take more and still more. She gives. She wants. He can feel the intensity of her wanting.

Everything’s changing. There’s Ren himself, on the Falcon, listening to his father’s voice that day. Not killing him, not this time.

It’s –

Suddenly, Ren pulls away from Ben, his eyes wide with disbelief.

‘Stop,’ he says, and his voice is terrible. ‘That’s not – that isn’t what happened.’

‘It happened to me.’

‘No,’ he repeats, but there’s something in his eyes that must be doubt or pain.

‘He forgave me,’ Ren says, and he is so surprised that he forgets to modulate his voice into Kylo Ren. He sounds like a normal person. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Really?’ Ben says. He isn’t gentle, not really, but he thinks he understands how it is done. ‘Do you not?’

‘You were really there?’ Ren asks, bewildered. ‘You saw all these things?’

‘Yes. Just as you saw them.’

‘And you died?’

‘Yes. I think so, anyway. I don’t actually know for sure.’

‘Fucking Jedi,’ he says, but he doesn’t really sound angry, more just stunned. ‘This is fucking typical.’

‘Yeah,’ Ben says, placidly, finding that he doesn’t care that much about it anymore. ‘I guess it kind of is.’

‘They put you there. Made you do all of that.’

‘I wanted to do it.’

‘You didn’t have any choice.’

‘In a way,’ Ben agrees, because he understands where this is going. ‘But I didn’t have to do anything. I could have just… stayed with Rey, I think. Or whoever, whenever. I could have drifted around pretending to be you for a long time. I didn’t want to.’

‘Why not?’

‘You already know that,’ Ben tells him. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

Kylo Ren pulls an irritated face.

‘It is, but I don’t want to understand it,’ he says. And then, incredibly, he actually laughs, just a short, staccato laugh. ‘Not that that matters.’

‘It matters a bit.’

‘Not really.’ He sighs. ‘What matters is what I’m going to do now.’’

Ben thinks about this, but the answer doesn’t seem to be difficult, at least not to him. There’s only one person they need now. There’s one way that all of this ends, and he’s fairly sure that it’s always going to be with her and him, on Exegol.

‘You’ll look for Rey,’ he says. ‘He asked you to find her.’

‘Yes. To kill her.’

‘Which you’re not going to do,’ Ben points out. ‘There was fucking way I was doing that. Not just because he asked.’

‘I didn’t intend it.’

‘I remember,’ Ben tells him. ‘I fought with her. I … tried to show her how to use the lightning. On a ship, a transport, in the desert. She was on Paasana.’

‘You didn’t try to kill her.’

‘Not really, no,’ he concedes. ‘We fought again. On the ruins of the Death Star. That’s what you saw. That’s when Leia – when our mother died. I don’t think that’ll happen now, but she’ll still go there. She wants the wayfinder.’

‘If I don’t kill her, if he senses you,’ Ren says, and there’s an edge to his tone. ‘Someone else will. Someone who really does want to.’

‘Then we have to get to her.’

He just nods.

‘Paasana?’ He says, as he moves to the controls, already preparing to leave. ‘Isn’t there some kind of festival there?’  
  



	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go after this one, at least as I've planned it. It's been so much fun to write this, and as always I appreciate the comments, which inspire me to finish the story :)

They travel to where she is, and as they do, they talk. The atmosphere between them is easy. They have, in a sense, known each other for their whole lives. Ben finds that he is relaxed with him. And his other self, whom he still thinks of Kylo Ren although it’s increasingly clear that he isn’t exactly that, seems relatively peaceful too. More so than he might have expected. There is a strange liberation in him that Ben doesn’t quite understand.

He asks Ben more about the trial he’s undergoing and it’s obvious that the idea annoys him in some way, or he is afraid of it.

‘But what is it _like_ without the Force?’ he asks, and his voice sounds like he’s commanding an answer although Ben finds it hard to know what he should give as one.

‘Difficult,’ he says, which is the long and short of it. ‘But not as much as you might expect. And I’ve borrowed other people’s power sometimes.’

‘Power transfer,’ Ren says, somewhat witheringly. ‘Like at Temple.’

‘Yeah, like in the classes you kind of didn’t attend,’ Ben says, half-laughing at him, not caring that much. ‘Because you didn’t think you needed to and you’d never share power with anyone.’

‘I learned everything that was necessary.’

He doesn’t correct him, just shrugs diffidently.

‘It was bad not being able to sense, on the Falcon,’ he reflects. ‘With that Rathtor nearby and Rey not even knowing she could use the Force yet. I was nervous then.’

‘You could have taken her power,’ Ren says, dismissively and Ben just looks at him, quizzical, slightly disbelieving.

‘Right,’ Ren says, registering this. ‘Not your thing.’

‘Probably better if it’s not yours either,’ Ben suggests. ‘If you’re planning to help Rey to kill Palpatine anytime soon, that is. Which I assume is more or less your plan, now you know what he’s going to do to you.’

Ren only shrugs at this, but the idea seems, nevertheless, to hold some sway over him, because he looks pensive all the same.

+

They are talking about Exegol, and how Rey died.

‘But what’s the way around it?’ Ren asks, irritated by the problem. He’s watched it all again in Ben’s memories. The way Palpatine sends him hurtling backwards, after he’s bled them of their power. The blackness. What happens between that and his finding Rey’s body, Ben can only guess.

The way around it? I’m not sure there is one.’

‘I doubt that,’ Ren says. ‘There’s always a way around things –‘

‘ - if the law’s not looking,’ Ben finishes, using Han’s phrase.’

‘Maybe it’s timing,’ Ren suggests. ‘Perhaps if she and I go there earlier, it doesn’t have to happen that way.’

‘Maybe.’

‘And if you’re here, I suppose that’s still a new angle on killing him. An advantage.’

‘I don’t have the Force.’

‘You don’t need it to fight the Knights. Or the guards.’

‘It’d help though,’ Ben says, rather dryly. ‘It was tough before, even with it.’

Ren raises his eyebrows at that, slightly disbelieving. He takes a breath, like he’s about to say something either very important or very difficult.

‘Tough as in _isthasra_ , or tough as in _elenath_?’

Ben laughs.

‘ _Isthasra_ ,’ he says, using the Jedi word that means ‘tricky; a little challenging’, rather than the alternative, ‘impossible, a fight to the death.’

‘Ah,’ Ren says. ‘So it was basically nothing then. Good to know.’

They look at each other. Ben grins.

‘Arrogance is not befitting,’ he intones. ‘Arrogance is the – what was it he always said?’

‘The first footstep on the path of despair.’

‘Yeah. Right.’

‘I don’t think I’ve used a Jedi word like that for seven years,’ Ren says, wondrous. ‘Not out loud.’

‘Well, I’m kind of an extension of your mind,’ Ben says, lightly. ‘Since I’m you. So I don’t think I count as out loud.’

‘Maybe not.’

‘And anyway, it’s not only about the Force,’ Ben tells him, going back to the original point. ‘You need a saber if you’re intending to fight him. We both do.’

‘I have one.’

‘Not that one. It’s corrupted.’

Ren shrugs. ‘It works perfectly.’

‘I threw it into the ocean.’

‘Well, that was kind of stupid,’ Ren says, but he’s amused more than angry. ‘I’m not doing that. I don’t fight without a saber.’

Then he sighs.

‘I need to see the memory again. I need to understand something.’

Ben holds out his hands to him and he closes his eyes. He suspects they’ll be at this for the whole journey, and it’s not a short ride.

+

After an hour, Ren seems no closer to understanding whatever it is he needs to find in Ben’s memories. And he’s frustrated by it, intensely so. There’s an itch of anger there that worries Ben. He wasn’t the most stable at this point, he’d be the first to admit that. His other self has been friendly so far, but he’s not stupid enough to think being friendly is the same thing as having really changed. 

‘What are you trying to get?’ he asks him, but Ren ignores this, thinking. He doesn’t answer questions if he doesn’t want to.

‘It’d be easier if I knew.’

‘You can’t help me,’ Ren tells him, although not too dismissively. ‘You have the same thoughts I do. I need to understand something about the Force, and I don’t know how. I don’t have that knowledge.’

‘What is there left to understand?’ Ben asks him, surprised.

The dyad. The power between me and Rey.’

‘What about it?’

‘Your role in this. I need to understand how it works if we’re a dyad, and you’re a copy of me.’

Ben thinks about this.

‘You mean, are we a triad? Or what?’

‘No. Not that.’ Ren makes a frustrated noise. ‘Whether – fuck it. Okay.’ He looks over to Ben, and his eyes are worried. He looks tired. ‘I’m going to become Ben Solo, aren’t I? Sooner or later.’

‘I expect so.’

‘And I want that fucker dead,’ Ren says, which doesn’t seem exactly like he’s planning on it being sooner. ‘Palpatine, I mean. I don’t trust him. He nearly kills me, and he does kill Rey and then that kills me. I want him out of the picture.’

‘Well, yeah. Sure. That I get.’

‘And as it happens, I’m not totally sold on it,’ he says, more hesitantly. ‘This whole thing. Not anymore.’

‘Were you really ever totally sold on it?’ Ben asks, but it’s with a half-smile. He thinks about what Luke said to him. ‘What kind of person would have no doubts at all about becoming a Sith?’

‘Right,’ Kylo Ren says, honestly. He seems to find it empowering to say it.

‘I was never totally fine with it,’ Ben tells him, although he’s telling himself, so he must already know that. There’s a benefit to saying it out loud all the same. ‘It would have been better to just… leave Temple and go do something else. Get out of the whole scene.’

This doesn’t seem to surprise Kylo Ren. It’s not a new thought to him. He’s considered the option before now, and it has always struck him as a middle ground that he hadn’t known to exist until it was too late. There have been times when getting out feels like it would be the same thing as winning.

‘But on the other hand, I can’t stand Palpatine,’ Ben adds. ‘And people like him. The lies, the promises of power, the obvious fucking transparency of what they want from me. I’m done with it. You know, Snoke said exactly the same things to Rey as he said to me when I was a kid. Word for word. In one of the memories, I mean. He thought I was turning, so he just tried it with her instead.’

Kylo Ren’s face expresses contempt.

‘And did it work?’

‘Did it fuck. She’s not that naïve.’

‘You think I was naïve then? Or you were?’

Ben sighs. ‘You were 23 and you’d never done anything except live in a temple with your incredibly virtuous uncle. It’s not surprising you didn’t know a lot about the world.’

He half expects a rebuttal to this that points out all the ways in which Luke isn’t virtuous at all, but if that’s what Ren is thinking, it’s not what he says now. He just looks a little sad.

‘Plus they were stupid,’ Ben tells him, thinking back to that time. ‘Not telling you about Vader, and telling you that you were chosen for some great destiny. That was incredibly dangerous and stupid. They primed you to believe that stuff.’

‘Maybe.’ Ren sighs. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway now. It’s too late for all that.’

‘You know it isn’t. You keep saying it, but you know it isn’t true.’ Ben counts off the facts. ‘If you kill Palpatine, it’s not too late to decide what happens next. It’s not too late to save Rey. It’s not too late to save Leia. All that’s your choice.’

I don’t want to help the Resistance. But I don’t want her to die.’

‘I know.’ 

‘And I don’t want to die myself. Not particularly. And…’ He hesitates. ‘Palpatine’s too strong. The Force is imbalanced, with Luke gone. It’s only her and Leia. That can’t be the right thing. It doesn’t feel right.’

‘No,’ Ben says, and he knows that it’s inevitable now, the decision he’s going to make. He already knew all of this so long ago, if he’d been brave enough to look at it for what it was. ‘It’s not right at all.’

‘I really do not want to do this,’ Ren says, but he doesn’t sound angry. He’s purposeful. There’s a fractured, strange edge of amusement in there somewhere, whether at himself, or the situation, or something else altogether.

Ben gives him a rueful kind of smile.

‘Yeah, but you’re going to do it anyway. That’s who we are.’

Ren closes his eyes, sighing as he does so.

‘This is going to be awful,’ he says, although he’s already using the Force, and Ben sees himself as other people do, because he knows what this is and what his other self is doing. He’s an incredibly, terrifyingly brave person. He hadn’t really thought of himself that way before.

For a long while, Ren is lost and far away. It takes so long that Ben begins to worry. He hopes that he hasn’t been thrown into another trial, or cursed to some other fate that will take days or weeks to resolve. He’s fairly sure that he’s not going to be able to do this without him.

But then he opens his eyes, and he looks… more alert. It’s strange, but it’s as if he’s younger, or more rested, or simply happier. It’s hard to put a precise name to the change, but there’s something there that wasn’t before, and whatever it is, it is apparently a nice thing.

‘So, they didn’t run me through with a saber,’ he says, surprised. He blinks, like he’s returning to material reality and seeing it only now for the first time.

‘Is that what you expected?’

‘You want to see?’ he says, and his face is so full of light. He looks so _young_. He holds out his hands to Ben, who takes them.

The image flashes there. All the people who’ve been in his head for his whole life, if he’d bothered to find them. They’re okay with him. More than okay. They’re thrilled with him. They think it’s brilliant news that he’s there.

‘We missed you,’ someone is saying.

‘You can do what you have to do.’

‘We’ll be with you.’

‘About fucking time, kid,’ someone else says, and that’s Luke, which makes Ben smiles.

He opens his eyes. Kylo Ren stares back at him, his expression surprisingly warm.

‘I think I know what to do,’ he says. ‘About Palpatine, I mean. Luke and I sort of figured it out. You’re going to hate it.’

It wasn’t even that bad,’ he adds. ‘Beats hearing their voices in my dreams.’

‘I guess so.’

Ben’s still wary of him, at least at a little. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up, because it would be so unbearable to be disappointed, to be on his own again, if –

But then Kylo Ren interrupts, and his expression is oddly compassionate.

‘I can sense your thoughts,’ he says, almost ironically. ‘You do remember that right? You’re looking at me like I might change my mind and run a saber through you. Even if I couldn’t read your mind, I’d know that.’

‘I know what you’re capable of,’ Ben says, cautiously. ‘What I am.’

‘Yeah, but you know.’ Ren runs his hand through his hair, looking all at once more human and more vulnerable as he does so. 'It's not the only thing I'm capable of.’

There’s a pause.

‘But I’m keeping my saber,’ he adds, and then he smiles. The effect is disarming: Ben hasn’t seen himself smile like this, so open and human. He looks almost like he might be a nice person, if you didn’t know his history.

‘Or rather, you are,’ he tells him, and then, with not a word of explanation, he throws it, sheathed, at Ben, who catches its hilt easily, as naturally as anything could ever be done. 


	18. Chapter 18

The doors of the ship are about to open, and Ben is, for the first time in what feels like and what maybe has been weeks, dressed in black and holding the red saber. In him, Kylo Ren’s power, his own power, flows, steady and strong. He has almost all of it – enough that he feels completely normal, in that regard at least. The Force belongs to him again. With a wave of his hand, he could kill. He could bring down buildings and ships, or do anything that he wanted. There are no limits now except the ones he chooses. Luckily for the world, he’s in a benign mood these days.

The sounds of the festival in the distance are cheerful. Music, laughter. Singing. There are a lot of people, but among them, he can sense Rey. There’s that white, light presence, mingling with the crowd, bright and persistent. Her emotions are mixed. Agitation, as she is looking for something. Fear about the Resistance, and about Kylo Ren for that matter. Doubt about herself and her life. And that same, eternal thing. Her loneliness. The unmet, aching need in her to belong to someone or something.

Ben could always sense all of it in her. He just didn’t used to feel quite this way about it.

Behind him, Ren – if that is who he is – is restless. He’s explained his plan, and while Ben can see the wisdom of it, he also thinks it’ll be a fucking lucky break if they actually pull it off. It requires a lot of things to go right: Rey to not hate him, for the first. He’s not sure about that, not in this exact moment. She was angry here. He remembers her, blazing with fury in this desert. He deserved it, perhaps, but now that he doesn’t, is she really going to be any different?

It also requires Palpatine to not be particularly thorough or observant, and with that they’re relying on his arrogance to help them. It requires Kylo Ren to be able to fight well without the Force, or much of it anyway, which he regards as easy but which might be harder than he thinks. And it requires something of Ben himself: to remember what it was to be Kylo Ren and to be able to perform the role at least well enough to be somewhat convincing to Rey and anyone else he might encounter.

Just wearing the clothes makes it easier. The heavy boots, the swishing black cloak. It’s a uniform in its way, and it signals malevolence. He can feel his need to conform to it, to become the man of the uniform. The actual Kylo Ren, or the person who was most recently him anyway, is dressed similarly although without the cloak, since he only has one of those on board. Without it, he looks less frightening, but maybe that is only because Ben can’t help but think of him as a friend.

‘Don’t waste time,’ he says, irritably. ‘Find her.’

Ben turns to glare at him, and glaring is also easier in this outfit.

‘I can sense her fine. It’s been a long time since I could do any of this. I was just getting used to it.’

‘Great,’ Ren says, with heavy irony. ‘Getting used to the Force. Want me to help you to learn how to levitate a rock or something, little padawan?’

Ben pulls a face at him. ‘Fuck off,’ he says, without heat and Ren, who seems somehow even more liberated and relaxed in the face of Ben pretending to be him, actually grins at this.

‘No one ever tells me to fuck off,’ he says. ‘It’s novel.’

‘They should have done.’

‘Yeah, probably.’ And then he almost pushes him out of the ship, using what little strength he has to buffet him out, further onto the sand below. ‘Find Rey. Don’t be afraid. Fear is…’

‘Healthy,’ Ben suggests, interrupting before he can throw a sarcastic Jedi platitude at him. ‘A necessary coping mechanism in the face of danger.’

But he turns anyway and walks towards the festival, saber in hand. He schools his features into Ren’s usual blankly contemptuous expression. He tries to remember what this was like. He was angry. Frustrated. He’d got everything he ever wanted out of life and he still felt so empty.

As he moves among the festival-goers, listening to the bright sounds of their laughter, their feet tapping as they dance, he imagines himself like a storm cloud, threatening them, heavy and dangerous, if they would only notice he was there. That was how it felt to be this person.

  
  
+

When he finds her, she’s just walking around amidst the gathered people, seemingly enjoying the event, a little smile on her face. He and Ren drove discretely, for a change. They didn’t signal their arrival in any dramatic or ominous way, so she has little reason to be suspicious that he might be around. And even though he is imposing in this outfit, people tend to just move out of his way quickly, so he hasn’t caused any disturbance as such. Not yet, anyway.

There are the beads around her neck, the ones he ripped off her in what must have been only a few moments’ time. He never will now, of course, but there’s something uncanny about it all the same. They were always going to meet at this time. This is a fixed event.

‘Rey,’ he says, as he walks towards her, the crowd parting slightly, and she turns to him, immediate, eyes wide. He can feel her fear. Her saber’s already in her hand, already active.

‘Stay back,’ she says, but of course, he’s not going to do that. He moves towards her, aware of the crowd gathering around them.

‘Not here,’ he says. ‘We need to talk. Away from this place.’

Her body’s rigid with tension. She is angry and afraid.  
‘We don’t need to talk anywhere.’

‘I can take you to Exegol,’ he tells her. ‘That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? To learn the way.’

She throws a Force blow at him then, unnecessarily in his opinion, and he takes it easily, it barely hurting him. Her face expresses frustration. There’s the sense that she’ll try again, and harder.

‘Stop,’ he says, lifting his own hand, generating a protective wall between them. ‘I’m not here to fight with you.’

‘Then what?’

‘I have to talk to you.’

‘What is there to say?’ Her voice is colder than he’s heard it in a long time. ‘You’re trying to eradicate the entire Resistance. My friends. My family. Probably me, too. You’re working with Palpatine. What am I supposed to say to you, Ben?’

People in the crowd around them are starting to listen, since her voice is raised. There’s an atmosphere building around them, like at the beginning of any fight. Tension crackles. People are wary, but they’re excited too. Eyes are on them. Two sabers, two powerful people circling each other. Of course eyes are on them.

If this goes on, the only way he’ll be able to be a plausible Kylo Ren is by killing some of them. He doesn’t spare onlookers. He doesn’t try to restrict his power from hurting anyone who’s foolish enough to be in his way. And as Ben Solo, he can’t bear that thought, so he uses the Force too, drawing her towards him, pulling her so she’s forced along on the tips of her toes, dragged like a puppet. If she won’t leave the crowd of her own volition, he can make her leave it.

She struggles furiously against it, as he draws her away, to the edges of the festival. Still onwards he drags her, away from the crowd, and then, jumping high, he lands soft in the far-away desert sand. She follows, of course, as he knew she would, and her saber is raised to him, jabbing sharply forward.

He doesn’t really want to have to fight her, but she’s determined and he has no choice but to parry with her, raising the red saber to hers. It feels odd to use it again. The energy it gives off is undeniably malevolent, but in the end, there’s something that’s a bit pathetic about blaming your sword for what you choose to do with it, he thinks, even as he’s swinging it, holding her off. It’s just a saber. It doesn’t have to be more than that. 

Although she’s apparently fighting to the death, he puts in about as much effort as he had the last time they fought, which is to say, not a lot. He’s just keeping pace. She’s too angry to fight well. They’re evenly matched in power, but in terms of training, experience and knowledge, he’s stronger.

If she’s this unfocused, she can’t win. She swings towards him, and he can already apprehend what she’s going to do. He sidesteps, and she almost snarls with frustration.

He could have always killed her in this kind of battle, if he’s honest about it. He just didn’t really want to. Not ever, not even that day in the snow, so long ago now.

‘Just leave me alone,’ she says, and she’s furious. ‘Stop following me.’

He can sense his other self, waiting in the ship. He’s pacing, anxious. Testing the saber, finding it less than to his satisfaction. Swirling it round, lifting it. Testing the plan in his mind. Guards. Kill. Palpatine. Kill. The jump down from the planet’s surface. The storms over Exegol. Jab. Kill. He’s on edge, fractured. His mind is looping around the memories Ben has given him, replaying them, imagining them as if they were his own.

He can’t wait too much longer.

‘We really don’t have to fight,’ Ben tells Rey, trying not to sound too nice about it even as she stabs her saber hard towards him and he meets her blow. ‘I have no interest in it. I have a proposition for you that’s to your and the Resistance’s advantage.’

‘What’s that?’ she asks. Her hair has come loose slightly with the exertion of fighting him, he notices, and she’s sweating slightly. 

He takes a deep breath.

‘I want to kill Palpatine with you. Today.’

All at once her saber lowers, and they’re certainly not fighting anymore. Her eyes are wide.

‘Sorry what?’

‘I want to kill Palpatine. I can’t do it alone.’

She blinks.

‘And why would you want that, exactly?’

‘He’s an inconvenience to me.’ Ben schools his features in Kylo Ren’s usual blank mask. ‘I prefer him dead.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘But you should,’ he says, softening his tone. ‘I’ve never lied to you, Rey. I’ve told you things you don’t want to hear, but I’ve never lied to you.’

She’s listening. 

‘There’s an opportunity,’ he tells her. ‘I need you to help me to take it.’

‘The last time I killed someone with you, you took his throne,’ she says, doubtfully. ‘What’s to say this will be any different?’

‘I don’t want his throne,’ Ben tells her harshly. ‘He’s part of the past. I want to build the future beyond the Sith and the Jedi. For that to happen he has to die.’

Rey’s face tells him all that he needs to know about her thoughts on that idea.

‘You have to trust me,’ he says, knowing that that this is absurd, but with no option but to ask it of her. ‘You and I are connected, Rey. We’re a dyad in the Force. You know it. You know when we fight. You know that our power flows from the same source.’

‘A dyad?’ she repeats, bewildered. ‘You and me?’

‘Yes.’

She’s looking at him now, really looking, and there’s curiosity there, beneath the anger.

‘But why?’ she asks. ‘I don’t – what am I to you, really? What am I to any of this?’

Of course, she doesn’t know yet that Palpatine is her grandfather. Soon, in Ben’s time, he told her, but not yet. Not quite yet.

‘I’ll tell you if you come with me,’ he entices, sounding very much like Kylo Ren. ‘We need to go now.’

She shakes her head, bewildered.

‘Ben,’ she says. ‘I can’t just go with you. I can’t leave my friends.’ She sighs. ‘And what happened to your face?’ she asks, and he knows that she means the scar, the one that she healed. As far as she knows, Kylo Ren still has it. In fact, he does: Ben just saw it.

‘I had it fixed,’ he says curtly. ‘It was just a scar. Such things are irrelevant.’

She’s wavering, just slightly. He can sense it. Her saber’s lowered, although still active.

‘The Resistance will live if we kill Palpatine,’ he tells her, although he expresses his contempt for this idea even as he’s saying it.

‘Yeah, until you kill it afterwards,’ she says, bitterly. ‘You and your Knights. I’m not stupid, Ren.’

They’re wasting too much time. Ben _has to_ get her on board the ship, and he has to do it soon. He and the other Ben, if you could call him that, don’t have forever before he fades away. Too much rests on this.

‘I’m sorry, Rey,’ he says, sincerely, and she blinks rapidly, staring at him. Her mouth curves into the question she’s about to ask, and there’s a strange, desperate hope in her –

‘But I don’t ask twice,’ he finishes, in the most Kylo Ren voice he can summon, full of ire and distain and the cold arrogance that made him who he was.

Then, for the first time ever with her, he uses the full extent of his power, and with a wave of his hand, he knocks her stone cold out. As her body falls, he catches her so softly.

‘I’m sorry,’ he tells her again, although she can’t hear it.

+  
  


Ren look incredulous as Ben carries her aboard the ship. He is waiting, pacing at the entrance, his face full of worry and pent-up feeling, the lightsaber in his hand.

‘You knocked her out,’ he says, staring at both her and Ben. ‘What the fuck?’

‘Had to.’ Ben carries her further in, and carefully lays her down on the small soft seat at the far edge of the ship.

‘Had to?’ Ren repeats, dubiously. ‘You can use the Force. You can do anything. Why do that?’

Ben rolls his eyes.

‘Yeah, good question. Could ask you the same about pretty much everything.’

‘Fine,’ Ren says, slightly amused but still on the edge of angry. ‘Fair point. But I’m waking her up, not you.’

He shakes his head.

‘Not a good idea.’

‘How could I do worse than you at this?’ his other self asks. ‘You just knocked her unconscious. All you had to do was tell her you wanted to kill her mortal enemy. You told me you’d be able to do it, but you obviously couldn’t.’

‘It wasn’t that simple. And anyway, you can’t. She noticed I don’t have a scar. You still do.’

He dismisses this easily, shrugging. ‘I’ll wear the mask, then.’

‘Absolutely fucking not.’

Rey’s stirring slightly. They can both sense it: the edge of her consciousness, returning. It won’t be long now before she wakes up.

‘Let me,’ Ren asks him, and he sounds all at once more serious. ‘I want to talk to her. I need to try. You already tried.’

‘Fine,’ Ben says, although it isn’t really. ‘Just don’t –‘

‘Knock her out? Saber fight with her?’ Ren rolls his eyes. ‘I’ll do my best, yeah.’

They move swiftly, understanding each other. They are so close to being the same person. Kylo Ren might not have his experiences, might not have been through the trial, or have lost Leia, or even have died, but in his essence, he’s as close to Ben Solo as the other Ben is. Easily, they transfer power between them. It belongs to both of them in its way. Ben misses it when it’s gone, but he understands. When they get where they’re going, it’ll be his again, at least for a short time.

‘I didn’t tell her,’ Ben says, and Ren understands. ‘She was a flight risk. You’ll have to do it.’

‘Go,’ he says, imperious. With a wave of his hand, the mask flies towards him. He puts it on, and Ben feels a sick anxiety rising in this throat. He doesn’t like seeing it. He doesn’t want anything to do with this, not now and not ever.

‘It’s just a mask,’ Ren tells him, his voice slightly distorted by it. ‘It doesn’t change who I am. It never did.’ With his hand, he pulls the saber towards him, the one that Ben is still holding. ‘And I need that.’

Rey makes a tiny little noise, a start, or a gulp of air. She is waking up. Ben doesn’t hesitate now. He moves quickly, away into the corridor beyond. The doors close behind him with a soft, gliding click of metal. Beyond, he can hear her voice, feeble at first, and then outraged.

‘Kylo? Ben? What the – where am I?’

‘My ship,’ he – Ren - replies and there’s an intake of her breath. ‘I told you that I needed to talk to you. You weren’t receptive.’

‘I’m not receptive now either!’ she hisses. ‘You can’t just – bring me here by force, you bastard.’

‘It was urgent.’

‘I’m leaving,’ she tells him, and she’s obviously standing up. ‘You can let me go, right now.’

‘Not without telling you what you need to know. About your family.’

There’s a sharp pause.

‘Don’t –‘

‘Palpatine is your grandfather,’ Ren tells her, and his voice, even through the mask, isn’t as harsh as it used to be. ‘That’s where your power comes from. He – he had your parents murdered. They tried to protect you from him. All of this began with him.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘I’m not. You can sense it.’

‘Take off your mask,’ she says, and her voice is terrible. Ben wants to reach out to her – she’s so afraid and in such distress.

Apparently Ren feels something similar, because his own voice is not quite composed. ‘I can’t do that right now.’

‘Why not?’

‘I have my reasons.’

‘It can’t be true,’ she says. ‘My grandfather? I don’t understand. I’m no one.’

There’s a silence for the briefest moment.

‘Not to me,’ Ren tells her, and even Rey surely can’t mistake the authenticity in his voice as he says it. ‘Not ever. My grandfather and yours were powerful, Rey. They were linked. Just like we are.’

‘You said we were a dyad. That’s the reason, then?’

‘Yes. Their power flows through us.’

‘Please take off your mask,’ she says, and there are tears in her voice. ‘Please.’ 

‘I can’t.’

‘He killed my parents,’ she repeats, and there’s strength in the words. ‘He had them murdered. Ben, I can see it. I can sense –‘

She’s crying now, a little gulpy hitch of her breath. Ben, waiting, is fearful, because if this goes wrong then there is nothing that he will ever, ever be able to do to live with himself. But then:

‘I lied about the scar,’ Ren tells her. ‘It was just a Force illusion. I still have it. Only someone using the Force could heal a saber scar like this one.’

And then there’s the sound of his removing his helmet, the rush of trapped air, and a heavy, metallic sound as he sets it to rest.

There’s stillness then. Ben, listening, thinks he hears movement, but he can only guess as to what it is. He thinks that they might be holding hands.

‘I’m sorry I lied to you about it,’ Ren says, his voice very low, and Rey gives a snorting kind of laugh.

‘That’s not important. I don’t care about that.’

‘We have to kill him,’ Ren tells her, his voice calm. ‘You understand that? This is what we have to do.’

Her voice, when it comes, is steady and clear.

‘Yes. I understand.’

‘Good.’ Ren’s voice is similarly clear. ‘So we leave now. Once we’re in orbit, we’ll talk. We have things to prepare.’

‘Yes.’ A softness in her voice. ‘But Ben, don’t you want –‘ Hesitation. ‘Your scar. If you don’t like it, can’t I –‘

His voice is puzzled. ‘Oh. I didn’t mean it that way. But I suppose you can.’

She must be reaching out her hand, using the Force. Ben can only sense the smallest of things now, with the little residual power his other self has left him, but even with that, he can feel it: a sort of ebbing gentleness that touches his skin like healing.

‘Oh,’ Rey says, and her voice is strange. ‘That – that actually worked.’

‘You really need to learn about the Force,’ Ren tells her, but he sounds a little uneven too. ‘I don’t think you know even half of what it is.’

‘Maybe not.’

‘There’ll be time later,’ Ren says, sounding more like his normal self, although perhaps still slightly strained. ‘We have to fly now.’

Rey’s following him, that much is apparent from the footsteps. They’re going to the cockpit, and Ben hastily moves to avoid being seen, ducking well out of their way, although he’d be surprised if Rey has anything but eyes for Kylo Ren right now, judging by the rapid beat of her heart and the tension in her that is bubbling up, curling into what might almost be happiness.

+

Whatever his other self and Rey are doing, they aren’t fighting, which reassures Ben as he waits through their journey. All is quiet and calm on the ship. They are headed to Exegol, where it began, and where it ends. Of one thing he is certain: this must be the last of these trials. The separation between him and his former self is so little now. The clock is almost back to where it was when he died, and once they reach that point, the circle is complete.

It’s a strange set of emotions. He’s ready to die, if that’s where this is going. It could be. And if that’s where it ends, then there’s something fitting in that. His other self is ready too. Ben doesn’t need to ask him about it to know that he is. Is Rey? Probably not consciously, but she’s much more of a Jedi than he ever was. She’ll do what she has to do, when the time comes.

By now she must, surely, be suspicious that Kylo Ren is not precisely the Supreme Leader he once was. They have tried to keep it hidden. If Palpatine breaks her mind, the less she knows or suspects, the better for her and the better for them all. But -

A noise shakes him from his thoughts. The door to the engine room where he has hidden himself is opening, and he can sense his other self, about to come in.

When he does, there is, of course, no scar on his face. He’s not wearing his mask, and he looks calm, as if this is nothing but an ordinary day in an ordinary life. When he sees Ben, he even graces him with something of a smile.

‘See? I told you I’d do a better job,’ he says, laughingly and Ben rolls his eyes.

‘We’re the same person. You just got the easy job.’

‘Maybe.’ Ren moves towards him. ‘We need to switch back. It won’t be long now before we pilot in.’

‘Did you tell her everything she needs to know?’

‘No, I thought I’d fuck up our whole plan.’ He grins. ‘What do you think? Of course I did.’

‘She healed your scar.’

‘Yeah, and you were listening at the door. So you already knew that.’

Ben laughs, admitting it.

‘I don’t think she’s buying that I’m at my most Kylo Ren,’ he says, and he sounds a little concerned by this. ‘Sorry. I can’t do all of it. It’s -’

‘I know. It’s horrible stuff. You don’t have to do it anymore.’

Ben sighs. ‘But it doesn’t matter anyway. She doesn’t have to fully believe we’re Kylo Ren. Just as long as Palpatine’s not sensing Ben Solo. I’d rather not die the second we try to enter the place.’

‘Even if he is,’ Ren says, rather darkly, ‘there’s a solution to that, isn’t there? If I can bring her to him, there are ways to explain what he senses.’

The understanding between them is obvious to them both and they need no more words.

‘Ready?’ Ren asks, holding out his hand, and Ben just nods.

Even as he’s transferring his power to Ben, he seems to be losing some of the last vestiges of his performance of Kylo Ren, however small they were. He visibly relaxes, stretching his shoulders back, letting them drop. And then he takes off his cloak and transfers it to Ben, along with the red saber.

‘It’ll just be you now,’ he tells him, as Ben takes them. ‘Don’t knock her out again.’

‘I won’t. I would never hurt her.’

‘I already apologised on your behalf,’ Ren tells him, irritably. ‘Told her I sensed an imminent threat. Which by the way, I don’t like. Lying to her.’

Ben gives him a withering look. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure you’re the one who gets to apologise on my behalf.’

‘Who else is going to?’

They smile at each other, amused.

‘It’s good, knowing you,’ Ren says, obviously reflecting on this. ‘It makes me feel …’

‘Normal?’ Ben suggests, because that’s how it makes him feel.

‘Like there’s a way to be myself that I don’t instinctively hate,’ Ren says, and then he seems to realise how sad a comment that is because he flinches, just a little, like he’s embarrassed by it. ‘Anyway, assuming we survive –‘

Ben cut him off.

‘We’re going to survive, Ben,’ he tells him, using his other self’s real name for the first time. ‘Okay? And then you can be yourself in the way that you don’t hate for the rest of your life.’

His other self just smiles.

‘You give pep talks that sound exactly like Dad’s.’

‘Well, they were always the best ones. Luke’s were awful.’

‘The truth path of the Jedi is to require no pep talk,’ Ren says, half-laughing. ‘It is to …’

‘Suffer nobly and die horribly and perform one’s duty without stinting,’ Ben suggests.

‘Something like that.’

‘Still, you know.’ He shrugs. ‘Uncle wasn’t much of a people person. I don’t think he was suited to the job he took on. Training young Jedi, I mean. I don’t know why he did it.’

‘Duty, I expect. He never got the difference between that and misery.’

‘I guess so.’ Ben grins. ‘But look, whoever’s going to be giving the pep talk in your head, and I definitely don’t recommend that it’s Luke, it’ll be fine. I’ve already done this. I’ve already faced him. I know what to expect.’

His other self nods.

‘I’ll be there,’ he tells him. ‘Just like we planned.’

‘I know you will.’ Ben reaches out to him, and even if it’s strange to do it, even if it’s only himself, he realises how much he wants to, so he does – he hugs him. His other self obviously doesn’t mind, because he hugs him back, his arm warm and solid around him. Ben can feel the beat of his own heart.

‘See you around then,’ he says, and he turns and walks out towards Rey.

+

Exegol draws near with unerring certainty. Whatever it is that his other self and Rey have talked about, she seems reasonably unhostile towards him now. She’s monitoring the ship, flying it smoothly, with her usual steady hand. They aren’t more than twenty minutes away.

‘You fly well,’ Ben tells her as he moves to sit beside her and she turns to him.

‘Thanks. I don’t get fly ships like this one often though.’

It is one of the very best ships that the First Order has to offer. Sleek and fast, perfectly made for what he needs. Violent, if it has to be. Cunning.

‘The dust storms are hard to navigate.’ He keeps his voice as much like Kylo Ren as he can. ‘On the approach, it’ll be hard work.’

She ignores this, just nodding as if the information is old news. Probably his other self has told her about it already; they had quite a long time together, so he must have done.

‘I’m nervous,’ Rey says, watching the stars ahead with an air of thoughtfulness. ‘Not about the storms. About – about meeting him.’

‘Why?’

‘I never had a family,’ she tells him, turning to look at him directly. ‘And now I finally do have one, I’m going to kill him.’

‘He’s not really your family,’ Ben says, just gently, because he can hardly bring himself to act like Kylo Ren when she’s talking this way. ‘When I first met him, he told me to kill you. He doesn’t care about you in the way that – that real families care about each other.’

She sighs.

‘Still. He knew my mother and father. What they were like, who they were.’

‘He murdered them.’

‘I still wish I knew what he knew about them,’ she says, honestly. ‘But I know it’s right to kill him, Ben. Of course I know that. He’s not even properly alive, is he? He’s a shadow. Leia told me about the Sith. They’re… the way they use the Force. It slowly kills the person they were. There’s nothing left of him.’

Is that how his mother’s thinking of it these days? That must be how she copes with it, he supposes. Although if that’s what she truly believes, odd that she’d try to reach him anyway. By her own logic, her son ought to be long dead.

‘I guess it’s something like that,’ he says, not wanting to get too far into it with her.

‘Not you, though,’ Rey says, urgently. ‘I don’t think there’s nothing left of you.’

‘It depends on the person they were before, in my opinion,’ he says, curtly, hoping he doesn’t sound too much like Ben Solo, although it’s certainly his opinion rather than Kylo Ren’s. ‘Someone like Palpatine was never a …great person. He never tried to do anything good with his life, not as far as I know. There’s nothing left to find in him because it was never really there.’

‘Ben,’ she says, still looking at him.

‘Yes?’

She just shakes her head. ‘Nothing. We’ll talk about it afterwards. When we’ve survived.’

+

It goes quickly, once it’s in motion. Ben is familiar with the way it works. Battles are always like this. A long, tedious wait followed by an abrupt cessation of normal time, in which everything seems to happen all at once. He and Rey landing in the dust, the ruins of a world coming sharply into view. The way down that he shows her. The jump that he makes, and how he helps her to land, buffeting her fall with the Force. The glow of her saber, so bright in the darkness. His own, dimly red, menacing. How he, without turning around, carries his other self down behind them, sensing his fall, guiding him to land as quietly as if he were never there. Rey’s focused on looking forward. She doesn’t hear, doesn’t look back. The other Ben waits, drawing back. He won’t be seen until he’s needed. If he’s needed at all.

In his head, he can hear the whispers of the Sith, just like he always could. Dead and gone, but not absent from this world. Their voices are jagged, the memory of an ice and cold that he wishes he could forget. But still they see him as he has to be seen. Not quite Kylo Ren, but not Ben Solo either. Not definitely redeemed and changed. There’s enough darkness in him to hold something of the illusion. He has to work hard, but since when has not been able to pretend?

They don’t see the other Ben, as he knew they wouldn’t, as Luke promised would be the case. All they see is power. They’re dead and sightless memories. There’s nothing left of them but the ghost of their hunger for power. That is what they need from him and Rey and that is what they whisper in the dark.

If an ordinary person were to walk here, they’d feel and hear nothing but a vague sense of dis-ease. Nothing more than that.

The ordinary person who walks behind them is, of course, extraordinary, but since when have Sith ever spared a thought for the idea that an ordinary person might be worth something more than their ordinariness suggests?

‘It’s horrible here,’ Rey says, as they near the main chamber. She’s shivering. ‘So horrible.’

‘It’s a temple to gods you don’t worship,’ Ben tells her. ‘That’s all.’

‘And this is what you worship?’ She turns to him, full of dread. ‘This?’

‘I don’t worship anything.’

They are there now, entering his tomb. There is a Snoke, encased and pickled in his jar. Rey looks at it, surprised, processing this fact. There are other Snokes here. A hundred or more. Machinery around them hums, vibrating at a low frequency that sounds like a purr.

‘Palpatine,’ Ben calls, and his voice echoes, louder, amplified by the Force. The guards around them move closer, encircling, but not yet attacking. They’ve seen Kylo Ren before. They welcome him as an ally.

He stirs. Both of them can sense him.

And then, there he is.

‘So soon,’ he says, and his voice is every bit as horrible as Ben remembers it being. Next to him, Rey shudders. ‘How soon you have returned to me, my young apprentice.’

‘And Rey.’ Palpatine turns to her, scrutinising her. ‘How long I’ve waited.’

‘You wanted him to kill me earlier today,’ she says. ‘So you weren’t waiting that long.’

Palpatine smiles, as if she has made a rather dull witticism that he has to humour.

‘I knew he would bring you here,’ he says, and Ben’s heart stops pounding, at least a little, because the _he_ is Kylo Ren. ‘I expected it, and so you have arrived. It is only a little earlier than I had expected, but that is no matter.’

‘I know I’m your granddaughter,’ Rey tells him bluntly. ‘And I know you killed my parents. Your own child.’

Palpatine smiles again, a little distantly, as if he’s hardly heard her. Ben suspects that this is the true heart of what he is: information he doesn’t like, memories of who he was, simply no longer register with him. They cannot reach him.

‘It is the future that is what matters,’ Palpatine tells her. He leans forward. ‘The continuation of our family.’

Rey shakes her head.

‘You’re not my family. My parents were my family.’

‘Funny, really,’ Palpatine muses, as he looks at both of them. ‘One of you so keen to save your parents; the other so keen to murder his. An interesting arrangement.’

Ben moves closer to him, just a step, but it’s enough.

‘I have always done what was I believed was necessary,’ he tells him.

‘Indeed.’ Palpatine laughs, a little dismissive snort. ‘Although it has brought you no clarity of mind. I sense the Light in you. I sense your heritage, more now than ever before. It blazes in you.’

‘Oh, it was always there,’ Ben says, disinterested. ‘You know that.’

Rey, next to him, twitches slightly.

‘It’s just one of those things,’ Ben says casually. His saber is sheathed, but he’s holding it ready. This is what he and Rey, and his other self, have agreed: they’ll know the moment when it comes.

‘I sense your doubt,’ Palpatine says to Rey. Ben can feel the way he’s invading her mind, tendrils crawling over her, reading her history, her fears and her hopes. ‘Your trust in the Skywalker heir is misplaced. You see only what you want to see in him.’

She almost spits the word. ‘No.’

‘You are so young,’ Palpatine says, and the words seem to caress her, soft and careful. ‘You imagine that people are not so bad as they seem.’

‘I don’t imagine that about you,’ she says, angrily, and then she does raise her saber, and she moves to strike him, hard and fast. Ben, next to her, can barely move to help her before Palpatine has her, pinned to him, his hand at her throat. Her face expresses it all to him. _Help me_.

‘Nevertheless,’ Palpatine says, as Ben edges back, his own saber raised, and he stills him with a careful, slow movement of his other hand. ‘Now you are both here, I do find myself curious. A dyad, no?’

He scrutinises them closely.

‘My power and that of Anakin Skywalker, together in our progeny. What do you think your grandfather would have thought, had he known the help he would one day give me?’

Ben shrugs. ‘Since you killed him, I guess maybe not that much. What kind of help is it that you want?’

‘That, I can show you.’

He throws Rey back hard so Ben is forced to catch her, her body landing in his arms. And then, Palpatine raises his hand, drawing the Force to him, trying to drain their energy. Ben feels the same thing as before: that horrible, wrenching sensation of everything that he is being pulled out of him, splitting him apart, forcing him to his knees. But then, a jarring halt. Nothing happens. There is a juddering, stuttering kind of rise in his chest, and no power is leaving him at all. Palpatine raises his hand still higher, shaking his head, using more of his power. There is no effect. Next to him, Rey is apparently as confused as he is.

‘But this is not as expected,’ he says, bemused. ‘This is –‘

‘Yeah,’ Ben says, standing up. He’s very close to him now: closer than you should allow an enemy to get to you if you have the slightest bit of sense. ‘We’re not exactly a dyad. Our power maybe. But not me.’

Both Rey and Palpatine stare at him.

‘I’m just a shadow,’ he tells them. ‘My Rey, the other half of my dyad, is somewhere else.’

And then his saber’s raised high, and he moves the final step towards him, as fast as he has ever moved. The blade is almost at Palpatine’s chest.

‘I pretty much just wanted to get close,’ he says, and he doesn’t bother to put any Kylo Ren in his voice. ‘And to have her close too. _Now,_ Rey.’

Her saber’s raised too, and they both move towards him. Palpatine’s equal to it, as Ben expected him to be. He pushes them away, fast and brutal. The Force he has, even without their power to help him on his path to resurrection, is considerable. He is strong and well-practised. Ben’s saber barely grazes him, unable to penetrate.  
  
A noise: the Force gathering strength. Rey is falling then, being thrown back, hurtling through the air. Ben stops it with a wave of his hand – pulling her away from that ravine, drawing her to safety, but he thinks he hears her bone crack, a sickening crunch as she lands, dragged on the ground, the cold stone. There’s no time to think about it. She’s alive. He has to -

With his other hand, he uses as much force as he can muster, trying to knock Palpatine out. The guards are swarming now, and he hears a distant noise of fight, which must mean that his other self is occupied with at least some of them, blocking their entrance. Ben figures he’ll be fine. Confident kind of guy, and good with a saber.

Another guard is with Rey, and even if she is injured, she still pushes him out of the way, knocking him down. Ben’s moving too, another falling at his hand, and another. This is nothing really. He can sweep them out of the way like falling leaves.

Palpatine is moving closer though, and Ben can see the lightning in his fingers, beginning to crackle. Definitely not, he thinks. That is not the way this is going to go.

 _I’d appreciate your help_ , he thinks, to Luke, to anyone who is listening. _Now’d be a great time._

There is a vague fuzz of acceptance. And with that, Ben throws all of his strength at Palpatine, and within it is something of Luke and all those who have gone before them in this fight. It’s a hard blow, and he shudders with it, falling. Rey’s limping, Ben sees from the corner of his eye. Her leg is broken, from the way she’s dragging it. But she’s still fighting, always. She’s using the Force too, trying to keep Palpatine down on the ground, to hold him in place. He prepares to lift the saber to him, striking to kill. There is tremendous pressure in his head, and he knows that it’s Palpatine, controlling him, or trying to, but Ben’s stronger than that.

All at once, the lightning in his fingers moves fast towards her and him both, and he’s aware of nothing but as white, burning heat. He can’t see. Everything crackles with static, electric, like a storm cloud around him. There is pain, liquid and violent, running over him, everywhere, a blast of it like a camera flash. He can’t see but he’s blinking, trying to find the light, the way to understand–

There is Palpatine, groaning as he moves, dragging himself towards Rey, who has absorbed a good deal of the lightning he has thrown at her. She’s still breathing, he thinks, but she doesn’t look like she can move easily. He is going to kill her.

‘So the last Jedi dies,’ Palpatine gasps, and it’s obvious he’s going to die too – just not quite yet, not quite soon enough for them to succeed. ‘Weak and alone.’

Ben struggles to hold him back. He’s not able to get up from the ground. There’s something wrong with him, and although he can’t place it, he knows enough to know that it’s bad. He just holds on, with every last bit of his power, keeping Palpatine away from Rey. He feels confused. The lightning, or the blow of the fall, have made him hear things, a ringing in his ears. And there’s a strange noise, footsteps padding forward, except that’s real.

‘She’s not alone,’ Kylo Ren says, and Ben realises that it’s him who is walking forwards, straight towards Palpatine. He sounds relaxed and hearing his voice makes Ben hold on, trying still to keep Palpatine in place. 

His saber’s in his hand, the training one that Luke gave him so long ago now. Rey’s looking at him with such wide eyes. She’s holding on too, Ben realises. She’s holding Palpatine frozen to the spot, and if they can only both hold on then it might almost be enough.

‘Can’t say I recommend killing your own family members,’ Ren says to Palpatine as he walks the final step towards him. ‘Personally speaking, I regretted it.’

The blade of his saber cuts straight through him.

‘And she’s not the last Jedi, either,’ he adds. ‘Just for the record on that one.’

For good measure, he cuts him again, straight into his heart. The place where his heart would be.

‘I reject some of it,’ he says, and Palpatine’s nearly gone. ‘But not all of it. So I think I still count.’

He smiles then.

‘And anyway, I don’t even need the Force,’ he says, lightly. ‘To kill you, I mean. Die knowing that.’

With his hand, he twists Palpatine’s head, snapping his neck. There is an ugly crunching sound. And then, finally, it is strangely, eerily quiet in that vast cavern. There’s only his other self, breathing hard as he shakes out his hand, which he has apparently hurt in the breaking of his enemy’s neck.

Ben feels less groggy now that the air of malevolence is gone from the room, but there’s still something wrong with him. There’s a horrible sensation, which he suspects is an internal injury of some kind. He just doesn’t feel good. It’s still hard to think, and moving feels impossible.

The other him is walking towards him now.

‘Hey,’ he’s saaying, as he kneels by him, his face alive with concern. ‘You’re injured. I know. I’ll help you. But I need the Force now to help Rey. She’s worse off.’  
  
The power between them flows steadily, until there is nothing left in Ben at all. His other self has his eyes closed, concentrating, but the moment he opens them, he moves, running, to Rey, who Ben can see from the corner of his eye.

He’s healing her, and she moans, a distressed kind of white-hot pain that sends a shiver through Ben because doesn’t ever want her to be in that kind of pain. She isn’t dead, though, which means that he isn’t going to die either. Not this time. It’s an injury, he tells himself. It’s just an injury. The lightning has weakened her, and she’s broken her leg. That’s all this is.

Still, as his other self concentrates, Ben feels sick with anxiety, beyond that caused by his own pain. If it doesn’t work, if he dies again here, if –

But then there’s Rey’s voice.

‘Ben?’ she’s asking, sounding a little confused. ‘Why are there two of you?’

‘I’ll tell you if you get off the ground.’

He watches dimly, losing consciousness, barely able to think, as his other self holds his hand to her, and she takes it without hesitation, standing up, leaning on him. They brush against each other, and he thinks that his other self briefly puts his arm around her.

‘Why?’ she repeats.  
  
‘He’s just visiting,’ he tells her. ‘He’s me from the future. And you’re going to have to heal him now.’

‘Oh.’

Rey comes towards him, kneeling down, just as the other Ben had done. Her eyes are wide and so very kind.

‘Hello,’ she says, a little awkward and Ben gives her a half-smile, as much as he can through the wooziness. Her hand is a cool and steady pressure on his chest. She can sense the discomfort and already she’s healing, finding the place where he is broken.

She’s healed him before, of course, in another reality, but it feels so different this time. It’s not for Leia’s sake that she’s doing it. It’s for his, for his other self’s.

‘Thanks,’ he says, once it’s done, which is what he should have said before, if he’d been a more gracious person at that point in his life.

She helps him up, offering her hand, and although he doesn’t really need it, he takes it.

‘It was really nothing.’

‘No, it was something. You just saved my life.’

‘I suppose.’ She smiles. ‘Given the circumstances, I’m fairly sure you’d have done the same for me.’

‘Yes,’ Ben tells her definitively, stretching, feeling surprisingly good. ‘I would.’

But before he can tell her that he already _did_ , that the whole reason he is here at all is that, his other self interrupts, looking slightly restless.

‘I’d be keen to get out of here,’ he says, looking around with contempt for it all. ‘Kind of a shitty place, isn’t it?’

Rey stares at him.

‘You – you’re talking normally,’ she says, sounding slightly stunned. The other Ben looks amused.

‘Did you not think I could?’

‘Well, the whole – I mean, sort of, but the whole thing,’ she says, vaguely, embarrassed.

‘I’ve given all that up,’ he tells her, sounding cheerful. ‘Kind of obviously.’

‘Yeah. It does seem obvious.’

They smile at each other, and from the way they’re looking at each other, Ben is fairly certain that the relationship they will enter cannot be long away. It cannot be more than hours away.

‘But you did snap his neck,’ she points out. ‘Maybe a bit extreme?’

‘Just being practical. I’ve had enough of dramatic resurrection stories.’

‘Fair,’ she concedes. And then she laughs, just slightly, sounding a little tired.

‘This has been kind of a strange day.’

‘It’ll be better when we leave,’ he suggests, and he offers her his hand. ‘Coming?’

She takes it. There can be no reality in which she doesn’t take his hand at this point.

  
+

It won’t be long before Ben disappears, he knows. In truth, there can only be one thing left to do, and that’s to talk to his other self. Really, it’s to say goodbye. He wants to – and more than that, he thinks that he probably kind of has to. So, once the three of them are on board the ship, and before they can get too far into Rey’s questions, all of which will be legitimate, important, and can be best answered by his other self since he’s the one she’s going to spend her life with from this point on, he pulls him to one side.

‘I’ll have to go soon,’ he tells him. ‘I need to talk to you, before I do.’

Rey, watching them, draws away. She must understand him, perhaps able to read his thoughts, but she doesn’t mention it if she can. She only smiles, nodding at him as she leaves.

‘Say hello to the other me,’ she says, just quietly.

His other self looks at him.

‘What is it you need to say?’ he asks, his voice easy. He looks and sounds exactly like Ben now. They’re even dressed the same, apart from the cloak, which Ben still has, and their sabers. But Ben doesn’t need the red, not anymore. He gives it back to him, carefully, ritualistically, the way that he was taught to give a saber.

‘I need to give you this back,’ he says, and his other self takes it, equally carefully, equally ritualistically, before handing Ben his own, which he takes.

‘I’d forgotten about that,’ he says. ‘The formal handover thing.’

‘Stupid, isn’t it?’

‘Really stupid.’ He holds the red saber, reflecting. ‘I think I’ll keep it though.’

‘The ritual or the saber?’

‘Both, maybe. I’ll show Rey, anyway. Maybe she’ll like all that stuff, who knows?’

‘Yeah. Maybe.’

Ben smiles at him.

‘Sort it out with Leia, won’t you? And Chewie. And everyone.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Be happy.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Don’t choke anyone,’ he adds. ‘Don’t talk to masks. Don’t get involved with people who talk about ultimate power.’

‘I know all that.’ His other self leans back, almost lounging in a very un-First Order way. ‘I’m you. You’re not the only one who was number one Jedi in training for like, two hundred years in a row.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Ben gestures around. ‘That didn’t work out so well.’

‘Ah, it kind of did.’ He shrugs. ‘It just…took a while.’

‘What are you going to do now?’

His other self gives what is the most Han Solo-esque and thus enigmatic of grins.

‘Be good,’ he says.

Ben laughs.

‘And seriously?’

‘Yeah, I don’t know. Try to – I’d like to maybe give better pep talks than Luke did. You know. To the – padawans. Not necessarily Jedi talks. Just – there are kids out there who can use the Force, and they don’t have the first fucking idea what they’re doing. So there’s that. And there’s showing Rey the things she should know. I should probably do that.’

‘I’m sure you’ll be inspirational,’ Ben tells him, smiling.

‘But I’ve got other things to do first.’

‘I’ll miss you,’ Ben says, because he knows he’s going to disappear away from all of this too soon – he can feel it already starting to happen, his body slipping away, leaving this place behind. ‘Even though you’re me.’

‘Start talking to yourself more often then,’ his other self suggests. ‘That’ll be pretty much the same thing.’

And then all once he turns serious.

‘We should get some friends,’ he says. ‘If you – if this whole trial thing works out for you, I mean. Friends are supposed to be like this, aren’t they? Like it is between us.’

‘I guess so.’

‘And yeah, Luke told me to tell you -’

His other self is smiling, like he can read Ben’s thoughts, and he finds them ever so slightly amusing.

‘He said don’t worry and he loves you and since when did you get to be so fucking worried about everything. And I told him, actually I always -‘

Ben fades out, not able to hold on any longer. Everything is dizzy white. The room spins, violently, almost lurching. He feels nausea rising. This isn’t the same as the other times. There’s no resetting. He just feels really very sick. His other self’s face is still there though, just faint.

 _I always was_ , he’s saying, the words ringing out, even as everything else spins. _I told him, actually I always was fucking worried about everything_. 

And then, Ben finds that he’s on his hands and knees, about to be sick. Under his fingers is earth, cold and hard. There’s a dampness in the air. He dry wretches, still sick from the impact, gasping for air. It’s very cold here, wherever here is.

As he looks around, he realises exactly where he is. This is where he started. It’s that same island, the same cavern that he walked into, from where he could hear the sounds of that party, the one with his mother and Luke, back when he was five years old. There’s nothing here now. Just the stone and a faint, distant dripping sound, water falling against the rocks. It’s dark. There’s only a strange light, a shaft from above although there’s no gap that he can see that should make it, casting an eerie glow.

He activates his saber, and it gives off its light. It’s not a particularly good saber, but on the other hand, it did kill Emperor Palpatine. That seems to be something of a point in its favour. Ben doesn’t mind having it quite as much, considering that.

‘Luke?’ he calls, although he’s not really expecting an answer and there isn’t one. He just walks out, leaving the cave firmly behind. There’s no one and nothing here, and he doesn’t have to be here either. Not anymore.

It’s only as he’s walking further out towards the surface of the island that he realises he feels exactly, indefinably, but perfectly like himself. Which means –

He raises his hand. Several rocks go flying. There is a disturbed shriek, some kind of bird. The flutter of angry wings.

‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Oops.’

He can use the Force. And he’s alive. He’s definitely, unquestionably alive, isn’t he? He felt alive in the trials too, but there’s something different about this kind of alive. He belongs here.

It’s another miserable day on the island, just like always, but he scarcely notices that, so relieved he is to see the actual sky – his sky, not the sky of the past, of another reality. The one that belongs to him, or to which he belongs. Whatever the problems of this reality, it’s the one that contains him and only him. He isn’t the shadow anymore.

As he reflects on this, several things strike him. The first is that he’s very, very tired. The second is that there is apparently no ship of any kind on this island, so he’s effectively trapped here. The third, it’s just started to rain heavily, and he’s getting drenched.

There’s nothing for it. He goes inside one of the huts, the one, he thinks, that Luke offered to him as a place to sleep, the time he found him here, when he summoned Kylo Ren and let him think he might turn into a Sith. As if he ever would, the bastard. There’s no fire or warmth, but with the Force, who cares about that? Ben starts one with a wave of his hand, igniting the grate as it’s plainly meant to be done, and the relief of the heat it gives off is almost immediate.

Outside, the rain lashes down.

No ship is inconvenient, he thinks. Really kind of a hassle. He’s not expecting a lot of passing visitors either.

Still –

He closes his eyes. Everything around him is clear. The Force is strong, both here in this place and in him.

 _Rey_ , he thinks, connecting them. He can sense her easily, her distant light so bright.

In front of him, she appears. She looks startled, but not perhaps as much as she should be. She’s dressed the same as always. She looks reassuringly very much the same as before, and better than that, she looks happy to see him. Not delighted – it’s too strange for that – but there’s a definite happiness to her that gives him a cautious hope that this might, for once, go exactly the way he wants.

‘Ben?’ she says, puzzled, the word only a little hesitant. ‘Is that really you?’

‘It’s really me.’

‘But you - you died.’

‘As it turns out I kind of didn’t,’ he tells her, and then he smiles. ‘Although I don’t have a ship and I’m trapped on an island. So it’s not all good news.’

Her face is briefly stunned before, suddenly, a wide smile lights her features.

‘You’re talking normally,’ she says. ‘I – I’ve never really heard you talk like that before.’

‘Kylo Ren wasn’t totally real,’ he tells her. ‘I mean, parts of him were. But the voice was – well, yeah. I sort of had to improvise some of that.’

‘So you’re not Kylo Ren now? Just to be -‘

The hope in her voice is almost too much to bear.

‘Definitely fucking not,’ he says, firmly. ‘Absolutely not. No.’

‘Oh.’ She’s laughing. ‘Yeah, that’s different. Okay. What island, exactly? But I know that.’ She blinks rapidly. ‘I can sense it. You’re in the place Luke was.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I’ll pick you up,’ she suggests. ‘I was actually on the way somewhere, in the Falcon, but if you can wait –‘

‘I can wait.’

‘Okay.’ She smiles so broadly, reaching out her hand to him. He takes it, and he can feel the warmth of her fingers. ‘Ben. I’ll be there so soon.’

He smiles back, squeezing her hand.

‘I know.’

FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy May 4th and yeah, I finished this fic!


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